


Connie Swap Episode 35: The Return

by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts



Series: Connie Swap [35]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Art, Drama, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Momswap, Pictures, Romance, Slice of Life, Steven Universe AU, connverse - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts
Summary: Homeworld is back! The Crystal Gems prepare to meet their ancient enemy anew.





	1. Barrage

Connie was sitting on the couch, already changed into her pajamas because they were comfy and she was feeling sleepy despite it being before dinner. Jasper sat beside her, Pearl's book open in her lap. In theory Connie was reading over her shoulder, well, over her elbow. However, more and more Connie had been leaning against the Quartz' arm, nodding off, fragments of Pearl's story wafting through her thoughts.

Then Peridot exploded out of the temple and sprinted headlong for the bathroom, gravity connectors hammering loudly over the hardwood floor. A slightly bleary-eyed Connie shared a look with Jasper, the latter offering an impassive shrug. A minute later the two had resumed their respective dozing and reading.

Peridot burst out the door to the bathroom, going so fast she hit the wall of the hallway and bounced off. "It's happening!" shouted the green gem.

Connie was jolted well and truly awake at that, on instinct making a sweep for threats of the Beach House interior.

Jasper carefully closed the book and handed it to Connie. "What's happening?"

"They're here," answered Peridot, wide-eyed and frazzled. "Homeworld!"

She should have felt a cold chill shoot through her spine or a surge of fear and adrenaline slam into her system. Instead Connie blinked, trying and largely failing to accept this potentially apocalyptic news. In fact, her first impulse was to go and shelve her irreplaceable book before something bad happened to it.

Besides, didn't they have space guns for this exact situation?

"The doom cannons?" asked Jasper, the Quartz already risen to her feet and looking poised for action.

Peridot's shoulders slumped and she shook her head. "The warship arrived via a hitherto unknown means of propulsion that allowed them to reenter Newtonian space already in low-Earth orbit."

"Meaning?" asked the Quartz, striding toward the temple door.

"Meaning the orbi- the doom cannons are designed to repulse incoming asteroids. They fire outward, away from the Earth. _Only_ outward: they have built in failsafes to prevent them from firing toward the planet." Peridot's limbs had entered their diagnostic mode, going through a range of motions autonomously, something the technician did when she was anxious. "Which is only a modest impediment when enemy forces are expected to have to disengage from warp travel in the largely uncurved space _beyond the orbit of Jupiter,_ " Peridot's voice growing shrill towards the end. "Instead," and she all but spat the word. "They've arrived within the no-fire zone using stars-know-what technology and are on an approach vector now!"

"How long?"

"ETA is between thirty-five and fifty minutes," muttered the green gem.

Jasper gave a curt nod and then strode through the temple door as it opened on Lapis' room.

Shaking her head, Connie threw her body into motion, heading for her loft and trusting herself to figure out what she was doing by the time she got there. _Okay, first things first: clothes. I can't fight in pajamas. Second- No wait, new first: call Steven. And the mayor. I can dress while I-_

A midsized suitcase hovered past Connie, enveloped in green light. "Dress swiftly, dear," said Peridot, her voice wavering slightly. "The essentials should already be packed, but you'll want to make a cursory check to ensure nothing was overlooked."

 _Oh, good. Peridot had already prepared for this emergency,_ thought Connie, meeting her luggage on her bed.

She paused and carefully shelved the book first, before hurrying over to zip open the suitcase. "Alright, ma'am. I'm calling Steven so his family can-"

Peridot hustled below. "No need. I'm signalling the town's evacuation alarm presently." Even before the gem had finished her sentence, a siren began to howl, growing in volume until it was unmistakable. There were additionally a series of flashes, flares or fireworks going off in a specific pattern to light up the evening sky: yellow, red, red, white. Yellow, red, red, white.

The temple door opened and Lapis flew out, literally. "Dot! How did they get past the-"

Jasper cut off the svelte gem, saying firmly, "Lapis. Get Bismuth."

Lapis swiveled around, glaring angrily at the Quartz. Then she seemed to notice the evacuation siren and froze. "Yeah. I'll be ri-" and her words were swallowed when she flew to and activated the warp pad.

Jasper wordlessly followed after, stepping onto the crystal and warping somewhere else the second the pillar of light had faded out.

An alarm started to trill from the bathroom/command center.

Pants, thick socks, a long-sleeved, low-neck shirt (she had to be able to reach her gemstone to withdraw her sword), a fluffy winter coat (with a zipper tested and verified to be easy to zip up and down, also for sword-access purposes), hair tucked down the back of the winter coat to keep it from flying around or being easy to grab. Connie was just getting her sneakers tied when the world became green-tinted and rotated around her.

"What?!" squawked the girl as she and the luggage was tractor beamed over toward the warp pad.

"There's no time, Connie. The warship will be close enough for long-range bombardment soon," and Peridot motioned toward the trilling bathroom alarm. "You must warp to safety before we reach that point. I'll send you to the garden. Use one of the baskets to gather high-caloric foodstuff and then warp to the-"

Apparently interruptions were a thing everyone did during an invasion, because Connie cut her green guardian off, shouting, "Wait, safety?! Ma'am, I'm not going anywhere! I have to-"

"You _have_ to get away from the alpha-strike site," barked Peridot, keeping the interruption hot streak alive. "This is the least safe location on the entire planet."

"And where is safe?!" argued the teen, refusing to budge. "This is Homeworld coming. They're going to sterilize the planet of all organic life which, spoiler alert, _includes me too!"_ and Connie stared straight at Peridot, poking the flesh of her cheek for emphasis.

"I know!" wailed the green gem. "I know! But if you're not here then-"

The warp pad chimed and Jasper stepped free, one partially completed light cannon slung over each shoulder. She looked over the scene. "What's this?"

"Jasper! Peridot is trying to send me away!" // "Whatever happens, I insist that Connie be away from here before contact is made!" shouted Connie and Peridot over one another.

Rounding on Peridot, Connie said, "The best chance we have is if I'm here to help us beat them. I know you're scared, ma'am, for me if nothing else. But..." Connie strode over to Peridot and drew herself up straight. "If any of us stay then all of us stay!"

Peridot retreated half a step, fear, confusion, and a faint look of awe all warring for room on her face. For a long second, Peridot forgot how words worked. Finally, slowly, the gem said, "I had not thought it possible to be this upset and proud simultaneously," her voice soft enough it was hard to hear over the bathroom alarm and the evacuation siren. She shook her head. "Still, I- That is, if that is-" Another head shake. "Very well. I yield to your ultimatum."

Jasper transferred the light cannons so that both were tucked under one arm, one of them lacking a base entirely, the other had a panel missing and had gunmetal grey visible in the barrel instead of being a uniform yellow. She ruffled Connie's hair with her free hand and then clapped a hand to Peridot's shoulder. "The only safety is through victory." She started to walk toward the door when she paused and said without looking back. "But I understand how you feel."

Wordlessly, the Quartz strode out, squeezing herself and her payload through the Beach House entryway.

There were a pair of chimes, one from Connie's pocket, the other from Peridot's primary limb enhancer. The latter looked at a holographic alert and then sprinted for the door shouting, "New telemetry data! I'm calculating an optimal firing solution right now. Quick! Move the cannons into the following arrangement," her words dissolving into indistinct commands as distance, alarms, and the slamming of the door muffled them.

Connie fished her phone out of her pocket.

_* StUn - 05:41pm | My parents r telling me 2 pack but ill be right there!_

She stared down at her phone, the missing cold chill from earlier shooting down her spine as a surge of fear and adrenaline shot into her system. A little clumsily she typed back:  
_* CoMa - 05:42pm | Your parents are evacuating?_

She should have been running around checking over her preparations or calling her dad or- or _something_ but just then, she could only stare at her phone, quiet while two diametrically opposed forces surged within her.

_* StUn - 05:45pm | Sry. Things r not good here. Mad mom sad dad. Every1 is evacuating. Half the town is riding in dads tour bus._

Connie's fingers hovered over her phone, poised to type as soon as she figured out what that should actually be. Steven had been pretty roughed up from desert fight, Connie having to take his injuries three times, plus whatever they'd done while fused as Asmi. All of the gems were, when you got down to it, really hard to injure in any permanent fashion, and Connie herself could turn insubstantial and survive nearly anything as well. Corrupted gems were one thing since they were effectively animals, powerful but lashing out angrily without a plan, easily distracted by tanks like Jasper or Bismuth. But these were gems. _Real_ , thinking gems. Connie knew Peridot was deadly accurate with her plasma cannon; was the same true for this Homeworld Peridot? P2 had even said she was allowed to use lethal force, which was pretty much any hit anywhere when the projectile was superheated plasma and the target was a non-magical human.

Given her recent argument with Peridot, that this line of thought was hypocrisy of the highest order further added to Connie's mental log jam.

The phone buzzed in Connie's hands, drawing her eyes downward.

_* StUn - 05:48pm | Momdad not letting me leave. Mayor showed up. Used that to go hide in parents bathroom upstairs. Can u send wolf? Its a big bathroom lots of room for wolf 2 howl into._

_* CoMa - 05:48pm | You're not going with your parents??_

It felt hard for Connie to breathe just then, her eyes locked on the screen of her phone.

_* StUn - 05:49pm | What! Of course not Im gonna help u!_  
_* CoMa - 05:49pm | ..._  
_* StUn - 05:49pm | No. No dots_  
_* CoMa - 05:50pm | Yes dots.. I think you should go with your parents._  
_* StUn - 05:50pm | I have 2 be there! We r partners!_  
_* CoMa - 05:51pm | This is different. These aren't corrupted gems, Steven._  
_* CoMa - 05:51pm | They're gem gems! Like Peridot and Jasper._  
_* CoMa - 05:52pm | They might not want to kill us in the fight because we're gems._  
_* CoMa - 05:53pm | They might want to capture us if we lose. But they don't care about humans, Steven._  
_* CoMa - 05:53pm | Your not a person to them, just an animal or an infestation._

She froze, fingers poised but her mind rebelling at the concept she was about to commit to text. When she saw the ellipsis animation, saw that Steven was typing something that might shatter her desperate resolve, her fingers flew into action.

_* CoMa - 05:54pm | They'll kill you._  
_* CoMa - 05:54pm | I can't let that happen. Please go. I love you. Please go._

Minutes ticked by, agonizing in their slowness. Her phone became blurry and it wasn't until the first tear landed on her screen that she realized why. Internally Connie was yelling at her phone, demanding it say Steven had listened, fearful it would be him saying he'd snuck out the bathroom window and was biking her way right now.

The animated ellipsis appeared and it was the only thing in Connie's world.

_* StUn - 06:01pm | Connie, this is Greg._  
_* StUn - 06:01pm | Thank you._  
_* StUn has left the conversation *_

Connie almost dropped to her knees in relief, something like a relieved sob escaping her mouth. This was close on the heels of a wave of guilt, so bitter she could taste it like bile rising in her throat. Finally, all her mental images of Steven cut down in front of her --blasted, mauled, stomped flat-- surged forward, only with her in his place.

Monsters were scary. They were scary and there had been times when Connie had been scared facing them. But as Lapis had once said, _'Homeworld plays for keeps.'_ The Crystal Gems had to go out of their way not to hurt people and not to shatter gems. These invaders would be doing the opposite.

Amethyst wasn't a killer --Connie wasn't scared of her-- but P2 was, or she could be very soon.

And for the first time, Connie felt _afraid._

The warp pad chimed and it was all Connie could do not to jump out of her skin.

Bismuth was there, grinning, with a golf bag slung over one shoulder, a few random weapons poking out the top, and a box of apple-sized crystal globes under her arm. In her other arm was a short, snub-nosed cannon: if the light cannons on the porch were Great Danes, this was a bulldog.

"Hey Alloy! You ready for the fun?" asked the eager gem. She was halfway to Connie when the warp pad chimed again and Lapis appeared, burdened by three more boxes of crystal globes.

"BM, the next time we're invaded, you're carrying your own frickin' explosives," grumped the blue gem.

Bismuth chuckled. "I offered to let you take the golf bag and Ruby cannon instead."

"And be your combat caddie?" objected Lapis with fake vehemence. "Never." Then, noticing Connie's damp cheeks, phone in hand, Lapis winged over, her expression concerned. In a gentle voice she asked, "Things okay, girlie?"

Connie sniffed and tried to wipe her cheeks with Lapis blocking Bismuth's view. "Yeah. Just- Steven's evacuating with his family."

"And that's... good?" asked Lapis tenderly.

The teen sniffed once more, not trusting herself to answer beyond a nod. She felt terrible and relieved and terrible for feeling relieved.

Bismuth walked past them, shapeshifting one hand into a long hook which she used to nudge the heavy door open without setting anything down. "I'm going to start getting some surprises set up. Hurry out, you two, so you don't miss the fireworks," said Bismuth with unrelenting cheer. There was a loud bark outside and Bismuth shouted, "Wolf! I'm glad you're here. See these? Don't eat these."

The door swung shut once more.

Lapis used one wing to reach out and 'kiss' Connie's cheek. "It sucks. The truth is-" and she leaned in close, "And not a word of this to OJ or Skittles. The truth is, I hate fighting. Like, really fighting. It's scary, people get hurt, and sometimes it's not the people you want getting hurt. There are only three kinds of wars: bad ones, worse ones, and finished ones."

She leaned in and nudged Connie's shoulder, the closest she could get to a hug with her arms full of what were apparently explosives. "Let's go out there and finish this one. Sound good?"

Connie nodded, managing to find a smile from somewhere. As Lapis winged over toward the door, Connie pocketed her phone and said, "Hey, uh, how about I get the door for you?"

Lapis shifted the boxes in her arms and gave a knowing look. "That's probably a good idea, Con-con."

Wind buffeted Connie as soon as she stepped outside, a chill, biting November gust chilling her nose and cheeks. She felt moisture, at first thinking it was drizzling but the clouds overhead were high and thin.

Instead the sea was choppy, waves surging up the beach, the fierce wind carrying salty spray with it. "What's going on?" Connie had to yell so she could be heard over the tumult.

A part of her wished Steven were here with his scouter to relay messages. This was immediately followed by an emotional cocktail best described as _conflicted._

Jasper was positioning cannons to the exacting specifications Peridot was conveying. Lapis was gingerly lowering her boxes of crystal globes down on the porch. Movement below showed Bismuth scattering globes about like a bomb gardener sowing their crops. Wolf was padding after her, pausing and using a broad paw to cover each with sand.

The evacuation siren was all the louder outside, a keening competing with the wind for the aural foreground. There was something strange about the lighting. Dusk was falling, the sun already below the horizon, but Connie couldn't shake a sensation of subtle wrongness even if she couldn't define it.

Peridot paused in her work with Jasper to jog over. "The warship's drive is causing turbulent weather conditions during atmospheric entry," shout-explained the technician. “The effect should subside once its altitude drops sufficiently.”

A very large wave washed up the shore, rolling over Bismuth and Wolf's ankles. It was probably big enough to dampen the boardwalk as well. At least it'd cut down on the amount of sand getting flung into the air: after their last mission, Connie had had quite enough of that; she'd felt grit on her scalp even after a week of frequent showering.

"Lapis!" shouted Peridot. "I worry that the oceanic instability will increase enough to hamper the town-wide evacuation."

Lapis nudged the last of the boxes out of the way and said back, "On it, P-dot!" Miming that she was rolling up her sleeves, Lapis added, "No one washes this town away without my say-so."

Wings summoned, Lapis took off, zipping up and down the coastline while the ocean settled down to a disquieted slumber, waves rising only to immediately drop back down. The wind continued to howl, but it did make the near-horizontal 'rain' stop.

Movement drew everyone's eyes upward, Bismuth and Wolf both pausing to gawk skyward. It looked like the fin of a shark cutting through waves, a blot of pink pushing through the clouds while leaving clear sky in its wake. Soon a second blot appeared, then a third, fourth, and fifth, all in a line, plowing through the sky. The winds roared as if the air itself was fleeing the invader, and a giant wave was visible on the horizon before a mote of blue zipped over and quelled it.

That indescribable wrongness Connie had sensed before clarified as land and sky took on a decidedly pink hue, a rose-saturated dusk that was eerily beautiful and frightening all at once. 

Above, the five blots descended through the cloudline, resolving into oblong shapes. Then suddenly the five figures fanned outward, clouds vanishing in an expanding sphere of clear, the first stars of night unexpectedly visible. A gale-force wind slammed into the people on the porch. Jasper was unphased but Peridot had to grab the railing with one hand-equivalent. Connie, meanwhile, rocked back and summoned a large vertical force field as a windbreak.

There, clearly visible, suspended in the otherworldly pink twilight of the sky, was an immense ship shaped like a disembodied hand, descending steadily like a wrathful titan moved to crush the insects below.

The wind vanished, the sudden quiet loud in Connie's ears. She --and probably every other person in sight of the Delmarva coastline-- stared up, fear and awe mingling freely before, slowly, a kind of angry incredulity took its place.

_Really? That's what the warship looks like? Who makes a handship?!_

Connie had spent enough time playing video games with Jeff and Peedee to suddenly suffer _Smash Bros._ flashbacks. Without consciously deciding to, she began charging with electrical energy as she imagined a colossal Pikachu fighting a pink version of the game's detached hand boss.

The silence was broken by a nasal cry of, "Fire!"

There were four yellow cannons on the porch, a trio of conjoined pink cannons, as well as the two unfinished cannons that Jasper had warped over with. One of these lacked a base and so was being held by Jasper herself, two large, thick, orange arms wrapping around the barrel and pointing it hand-ward.

There was a hum and then a _whoosh_ that had Connie's teeth rattling and her eyes blinking at the sudden explosion of light. The porch shook and Jasper's boots slid back across the deck a few inches from the recoil. Rubbing at her eyes, Connie was able to make out seven projectiles rocketing toward the handship: six were yellow and teardrop-shaped, the much-larger cousins to Peridot's own plasma blasts. The seventh was whitish-pink and seemed to look like a trio of female silhouettes swirling around one another, streamers of light trailing in their wake.

The colossal hand shifted, fingers closing, palm outstretched as if to deny the barrage in mime. It neither slowed or dodged. Five of the projectiles struck the palm, including the swirling trio, though two yellow bolts sailed past, vanishing into the pink-tinged twilight. There were what looked like curls of steam coming off the impact sites, but given the size of the ship what Connie was actually seeing were banks of smoke. This haze spiraled up and past the ship, some around the palm, some slipping through the fingers, blown past by the wind of its approach.

Once the smoke cleared, there was no obvious damage, no visible marring of the ship's surface.

"Engaging barrage pattern beta!" barked Peridot. A hologram appeared in front of Jasper containing a targeting reticle and a countdown timer.

The pink trio fired. A half-second later two of the yellow cannons fired. Then Jasper's cannon and one more yellow cannon. Then the last two fired, including the unfinished one with a panel missing. Just as the deck stopped shuddering, the pink trio fired again and the sequence repeated.

A continuous barrage followed, an unrelenting stream of fire, shots peppering the handship until the air in front of it was hazy enough you could think it was descending through a perpetual, wrathful cloud of hellfire.

As Jasper continued to be pushed backwards, Connie summoned a vertical field behind the Quartz for her to brace against. The warrior never took her eyes off her target, but the modest nod of gratitude was proof that she noticed Connie's contribution.

Smoke and an angry glow emerged from the missing panel on the unfinished cannon. It was impossible to be heard over the tumult so rather than shout a warning, Connie unleashed an arc of electricity over Peridot's shoulder. The green gem looked around startled, first at Connie, then at the ailing artillery. Her tractor beam grabbed the gun and then flung it up and away from the temple, the whole thing erupting into a miniature yellow sun probably fifty feet overhead. Connie summoned a horizontal field to shield them from the rain of smoking, incandescent debris that rained down.

Peridot alternated between tractor beam-chucking the white-hot fragments off the wooden deck and spraying them with fire-extinguishing, endothermic foam.

With a final, eight gun blast, the barrage terminated, Connie's ears ringing in the wake of the continuous thundering.

The handship looked lightly scorched in places but was otherwise unharmed, visibly closer in the sky and still approaching.

Between eye blinks the blue dot on the horizon became Lapis hovering a little overhead, the gem's arrival heralded by a percussive blast of wind. "Time for a little arm-wrestling?" Connie thought she asked, the words indistinct in her still-ringing ears.

Peridot nodded, her expression tight. "Yes. Our light cannons aren't energetic enough to penetrate the warship's armor plating."

Jasper, meanwhile, rested her cannon upright against the porch's railing. There were scorch marks on her arms and clothes --anywhere that had been touching the weapon-- though she didn't seem particularly bothered by the burns. When the wood of the railing began to smolder, though, Jasper grabbed the cannon, tossing it away from the porch entirely. When the wood itself failed to stop smoking, Jasper ripped out the offending boards, tossing them down to the sand below.

Ignoring all of that, Lapis hovered a few feet higher, hands splayed out like an orchestra conductor. Slowly she raised her hands while out in the bay a hump of water extended up, hill-sized, then building-sized, then mountain-sized. Up and up it went, slowly stretching out until, Lapis bringing her right arm upright and fanning out her fingers, giant water digits appeared on the colossal water hand.

The handship, meanwhile, curled into a fist, neither slowing or evading.

Half-snarling, half-smiling Lapis said, "You came to the wrong neighborhood, you piece of schist." Then the titanic water hand surging upward like Earth's own uppercut. _"I hope you're thirsty!"_ she shouted seconds before impact.

The water hand neared the warship and... dissolved: fist, wrist, then arm turning into a lake-sized waterfall as it crossed some invisible boundary and fell inert into the ocean below.

"What?!" roared several voices, Lapis' rising above the others in shocked disbelief to say, "They filled their ship with Moissanites?!"

 _Moissanites?_ Connie gasped as recognition struck her. _The living island! It had that aura that completely neutralized Lapis' hydrokinesis._ The ice-cold fear of before returned because this meant these invaders had anticipated them, had designed their offense to counter them.

Connie had to resist the urge to dash back into the Beach House and hide, because smart enemies? Smart enemies were _terrifying_.

An angry scream made Connie jump, fear thundering in her ears, before she realized the source wasn't an assailant but instead Lapis.

"Rrraaaaaah!" roared the gem, a scream of such raw, unthinking rage it seemed too large to be coming from so slight a figure. Her eyes were mirrored planes dimly reflecting the pink subject of her ire.

As the ocean heaved, a forest of water fists rose upward. Meanwhile, the waterline receded further and further back. A few scuttled ships were visible, as well as numerous now-beached buoys.

Hands shot upward, some grasping, others punching. Watery spears the size of skyscrapers struck, as did biting maws like some colossal, aquatic hydra straight out of mythology. All this and more rose up to lash out at the pink invader, an extension of Lapis' unbridled rage and fear, and all of it cascaded harmlessly back to earth when it reached its foe.

Peridot was yelling something up at Lapis and being ignored. Connie fired an arc of electricity in front of the blue gem to no effect. Jasper leapt upward to grab at her, but Lapis was hovering too high for her to reach, the deck shuddering with the force of the Quartz coming back down empty-handed.

Then a rock smacked Lapis in the shoulder, the gem crying out as much from surprise as pain.

A many-grasping construct of water, probably as large as a Great Lake, succumbed to gravity, a sound like the combination of every rainstorm Connie had ever heard washing over them. A half-second later there was a gust of wind that dwarfed even the gales from before, Jasper having to grab Peridot to keep her from being flung back and Connie clinging desperately to the back of her force field-cum-windbreak. Then a wave rolled up, creating a new high water mark that probably submerged several of the steps leading up to the Beach House. In the distance Connie thought she heard a crash and when the wave rolled back out it looked like it was taking a large chunk of the wooden boardwalk with it.

A pupilless glare and a snarl looked down to Bismuth, the smith having hammered a hook-shaped arm into a boulder to stay anchored through the flood. She still had the snub-nosed cannon under her other arm and the golf bag of weapons slung over her shoulder. A swirl of color showed Wolf emerging from a portal at the top of the cliff overhead.

"Hey! Raindrop! Stop splashing around and use some real munitions!" shouted the smith as a water hand emerged from the ocean and curled into a fist over the gem's head. She then grabbed one of the crystal globes and chucked it skyward where it struck the looming fist and exploded in a thunderclap and spray of water.

The mirrored death-glare continued a beat longer before the smith added, "You can thank me for saving your blue butt later."

This earned what could only be described as a 'rage laugh' from the svelte gem, shaking her head and clawing at her pigtails to shout, "Oooh, when this is over I'm dunking you at Point Nemo and letting you swim back, you piece of coprolite!"

"Yeah, love you too, Blue. Now hurry up and bomb them," answered Bismuth between laughs.

Despite having months to witness it in action, Connie still didn't really _get_ Lapis and Bismuth's relationship.

The exploded water hand reformed and then extended out toward the porch. Peridot, meanwhile, tractor beamed the three crates of explosives into it. In the distance more boardwalk debris churned in the agitated seas, the fries basket-shaped sign that used to stand in front of the fry shop floating away, flanked by a profusion of what might be colorful beach shirts.

Connie had time to spare a brief worry about the state of the boardwalk businesses before activity overhead obliterated the thought.

The explosive water hand dissolved when the handship approached, the aura surrounding the craft turning it into so much falling water. Then the pink palm began to sparkle, motes of red and orange appearing across the surface, smoke and seething steam engulfing the approaching craft. A second or two later a sound like the crash of calving iceberg washed over them, the light of the explosions having outraced the sound.

When debris fell from the cloud there was a cheer from porch and sand below. Lapis, meanwhile, dropped down, flapping her wings just enough to land on her duff rather than collapse bonelessly. She was panting and her eyes had a feral cast to them, the gem flinching when Connie rushed over to her side. Finally the ship plowed through the smog, soot-blackened, with streaks like palm lines crisscrossing it. Most significantly, the last digit of the ring finger was missing, a trickle of smoke and a flicker like flame visible from the stump.

"Got more?" barked Jasper to the beach below.

Bismuth shook her head. "Just what I seeded the beach with. You either make those slowly or you end up as shard confetti."

The looming handship twisted, the bottom three fingers (or what was left of them) curling in, the thumb extending out, and the whole thing pivoting so that the index finger was pointed directly at them, a 'finger gun' so large it dwarfed ready comprehension.

Peridot yelped. "That's an artillery configuration! They're preparing to bombard the Beach House!"

Without warning Connie felt tight arms encircle her and then the world became a blur of movement. Just as suddenly she was being dumped in the damp sand a hundred yards from the Beach House. "Be right back, Con-con. Gotta evac D-"

On the air was the faintest strain of music, a waltz Connie recognized from somewhere she was having trouble placing. Then there was a bright green-orange glow, an indistinct form appearing over the patio. It hovered forward, past the railing, then extended up as well as down, a giant forming in silhouette and then in substance.

"Oh, nevermind," muttered Lapis.

Bismuth, who was standing on the beach probably fifty yards away, waved at them, then pointed up at the towering brown figure of Tiger's Eye. Connie didn't recognize the exclamation the smith made but from the way Lapis laughed, she'd probably get in trouble if she repeated it around Peridot.

There was a tremor in the sand as the four-armed fusion stepped into a defensive martial arts stance. Overhead, the tip of the pointer finger was glowing brighter and brighter, spots dancing in Connie's eyes when she was forced to look away.

First, light: a column of blinding radiance speared down, the immense figure of Tiger's Eye turning into an indistinct shadow. Second, sound: a thunderclap and a roar of coherent noise more felt than heard smashed into Connie and Lapis. The field Connie had summoned to shelter the pair did little save tint the whole thing yellow, at least until the blast of wind and sand rushed past.

As the overhead bombardment continued, the beam bounced as if fired at a colossal mirror, arcing across the sand, then spearing through the frothing ocean, and finally rotating up like a spotlight to sweep across the surface of the handship.

The finger stopped firing abruptly and a patter of minor explosions rippled across the handship's exterior. There was a distant splash as the pinky, severed between second and third digit, fell into the ocean below, and it looked like a branding iron had been laid across the ship, an angry red line running from demolished pinky up and across the palm and thumb.

Heat radiated up from the sand scorched by the beam but the ripples in the air curled around and away from the stoic giant standing in front of the porch. There were great plumes of steam rising from the ocean, already choppy waters now thrashing. Bismuth, who, hadn't been too far away from the sweep of the redirected beam, was jogging over to Connie and Lapis, that golf bag of weapons still slung over one shoulder and that shortened cannon tucked under her arm. With a flash and a sound like a howl in a tunnel, a vortex appeared, Wolf emerging to pad over and join them.

"Was that energy redirection?!" shouted the smith, finally reaching them. "Jaz and Green make a killer fusion. Why did you gals never tell me?! Dirt and diamonds, that was awesome!"

In the distance, Tiger's Eye stepped forward into an offensive stance, raising two arms up and making a 'bring it on' gesture with palms and fingers at the incoming craft.

In response the index finger began to glow a second time.

Bismuth laughed and absently scratched Wolf's chin. "Now I'm feeling a little silly bringing all these weapons to fight Homeworld when Homeworld brought the only one we’d need."

As the light reached blinding levels, the handship pivoted. The beam shot down into the bay, geysers of steam rising in response, and then the ship began to walk the beam slowly toward Beach City.

About a dozen different, highest-of-high alerts sounded in Connie HQ, the girl scrambling for her phone to do... what? Shout Steven and her dad and Mr. and Mrs. Universe and every other evacuating resident to safety?

Then the giant, brown, four-armed figure guarding the Beach House flared and fissioned, Jasper and Peridot dropping or helicoptering down to the blasted beach below.

The encroaching beam vanished a beat after, a new channel scored in the ocean floor and ending frighteningly close to the surfside town.

"Turns out Homeworld has a form of sign language all their own," muttered Lapis darkly, flipping off the ship in an angry but desultory manner.

Then the handship pivoted, fingers curling into an overturned fist, rotated so that the fingers and thumb were facing the sky. The vessel became visibly louder and larger as it finally got near. Below, the steaming seas thrashed and writhed... only to go immediately glass-smooth as they entered the radius of the water-calming aura.

It took Connie a second to recognize the muttering from Bismuth, the smith saying under her breath, "Little closer, little closer, not over the blasted sand..."

When the handship halted in front of the trench of blasted and glassed sand, fingers uncurling into a cupped palm facing the sky, Bismuth swore, "Jank! Double jank and schist!" Lapis looked askance at her but Bismuth waved her off. "We can still make this work. Just don't go standing in the stretch of sand south-east of the blast line."

Lapis nodded then turned to face the group. She was smiling but only because it bared her teeth, an animalistic thing that completely failed to reach her eyes. "Well, they came all this way," she ground out. "Let's go over to OJ and Dot so we can all say ‘hello’."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the episode bingo card, courtesy of BinaryGeek and other delightful theorists from the Connie Swap Discord, armed only with the episode promo, summary, and their own speculation. On a related note, bingo speculation/suggesting is open to all, not just the regulars on the CS Discord. If you want to get in on the fun, or want to join the ongoing theory discussions, feel free to drop by the Connie Swap Discord.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
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> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	2. Hand to Hand

With Connie summoning her sword and hopping up onto Wolf's back, the group made their way over. Everything looked dream-like painted in the rose-colored dusk, which is why the battle damage didn't quite feel real to Connie.

A trench of glassed sand wide enough to sail the gem sloop down had been blazed through the beach. Parts of the porch were blackened and others were smoking, while a three-step stretch of the stairs up to the Beach House had been bashed out, smashed free by some falling debris Connie hadn't seen. The beach was littered with still-steaming fragments, ejecta flung out from the bombardment, and plumes of smoke and steam were blown inland by the breeze which made Beach City look hazy. Connie genuinely couldn't tell how much or how little it had been damaged by the exchange of futuristic fire.

That the evacuation siren had fallen silent, however, was foreboding.

Jasper stood in an alert stance just past a depression in the sand made by her earlier, immense fusion, the Quartz looking up at the ship. The burn marks from handling the unfinished light cannon were mostly gone but fresh ones were visible, especially across her hands and left leg, presumably damage from Tiger's Eye's awe-inspiring beam deflection.

Peridot stood nearby, attention split between invaders and allies. She seemed visibly relieved when everyone appeared unharmed. Her primary limb enhancer was in cannon-mode and seemed no worse off than ever, but there were streaks of burn damage on the skin and clothing just beyond her limb enhancers and gravity connectors: Connie could only assume the abuse was worse beneath the tech that had been safely subsumed within Tiger's Eye during the assault.

And looming over them all, damaged but seemingly dauntless, was the handship. It hovered over the unnaturally smooth water just off the shore, the intact fingertips extending far enough out to leave shadows over the sand and the slowly-flooding glassed trench.

"Good work, gals," said Bismuth followed by her repeating her warning about the stretch of beach that contained hidden explosives.

Two things happened in rapid succession. First, Wolf's ears flattened against the side of his head a split-second before he reared back, bucking Connie off to land unceremoniously on the sand behind him. Connie maintained the grip on her sword, but only barely. Then a portal opened, Wolf lunging through, hound and portal disappearing an instant later. There was no sign of the exit portal anywhere Connie could see.

The second was the handship fingers uncurling further open, revealing a trio of figures in the outstretched palm. Connie gasped, confusion over Wolf's inexplicable retreat shoved far, far away.

P2 was looking at the scenery rather than the Crystal Gems, her expression rapt. Her pristine limb enhancers looked so strange to Connie, the lack of duct tape conspicuous in her eyes. Peridot herself had made a sharp intake of breath nearby, her eyes locked on her Homeworld counterpart, her thoughts no doubt running along similar lines.

Rose stood with a pleased, even smug expression, her outfit different than what Connie remembered from the glimpse in the Kindergarten control room broadcast. Her left hand was resting comfortably across the back of P2's neck, thumb grazing the side of the mottled gemstone, large hands covering swaths of the technician's shoulders as well. Her gaze swept over the Crystal Gems below, halting when they spotted Connie and the sword she was holding. The large, pink-haired enemy's mouth flattened, a frown and a glare pinning Connie in place. 

Without consciously realizing it, Connie raised her left hand up, her fingers brushing over the hairline scratch in her gemstone.

But while seeing Rose was equal parts confusing and frightening --the gem a pink bogeyman that had stepped out of legend and into reality-- what hit Connie hardest was seeing Pearl standing primly beside her, seemingly unable to meet Connie's eyes, the pink diamond emblem a strange splash of color on her otherwise unchanged outfit.

"P-Pearl?" asked Connie, startled to hear her own voice. It was eerily quiet, the surf near the ship smoothed into silence. Pearl met Connie's eyes for a split-second before dropping them to her feet.

This seemed to get P2's attention, the technician finally looking down at the Crystal Gems below. "That's them, alright! The ones who keep delaying my schedule." Then she peered forward, squinting before her face lit up. "Wow! Those obsolete, Era-1 control room sensors were way off. Nice mass!" she exclaimed, waving at someone below.

This caused some amount of confusion among the defenders below, Bismuth sharing a puzzled look with Peridot, who only shrugged in response.

"She's talking about me," declared Lapis softly.

Jasper snorted. Somehow. "You wish."

Rose's relaxed smile returned but her eyes never left Connie. In a smooth, rich voice the pink gem said to P2, "Is that so? Don't worry, I'll put an end to that."

A loud, wet-sounding raspberry cut through the air, all eyes above and below turning to Lapis. "Hi Strawberry Beefcake!" quipped the blue gem, the irreverent tone almost managing to hide the tremor of fear in her voice. "I just wanted to say that you hiding behind those Moissanites is real cute and all. Reminds me of when Citrine, OJ, and I were mopping up the last of your peeps before you got scared and ran to Homeworld. You talked a big game but you never could stand getting your hands dirty."

Out past the aura of watery stillness, the ocean trembled, an unconscious sign of Lapis' anger. Or fear. Probably both.

Rose's smile only deepened. "Oh, hello Lapis~" singsonged the gem, her voice one of complete self-assurance. "Sank any more continents while I was gone?"

There was a sharp inhalation from the blue gem. "Come over here and ask that, thunder thighs.” she ground out. “You wanna talk about continents, if we were playing _Risk_ , owning your chubby form would be worth at least three extra armies a turn."

Rose shook her head, thick, pink curls swaying voluminously with the motion. "You're scared, Lapis. It's obvious to everyone; it always was." She spoke softly but her voice carried, melodious and unconcerned. "Did you ever wonder why Culi never actually shot you out of the sky? Why she always seemed just off the mark? That was no accident, Lapis: Culi never missed."

She paused, waiting a second while Lapis failed to say anything in response. Then she continued, voice honeyed even as her words cut. "It's because I told her to. I told her that you were more of a danger to your allies than your enemies, that you'd do us more good scared and lashing out than bubbled. So she always shot at you but _somehow_ never seemed to hit," and her voice lilted up at 'somehow' as if she was sharing a funny coincidence with a close friend.

"It got so bad that Citrine had to make you go out as Malachite." Rose shook her head, expression somber. "It was such a pity when my little sister lost faith in you, Lapis. Such a pity, and not just because it meant one of my favorite tactics had to be shelved. No, it was a pity because you make such a terrible fusion, Lapis." The hand across P2's shoulders rose up to gently ruffle the mottled gem's hair, the technician's dimples deepening as she did. "Homeworld made thorough scans of the Earth, you know. I had Peridot show me exactly how many coastlines reach further inland, how many islands have disappeared." She shook her head. "You're the same sad, scared little gem, Lapis, and I'm sure that, if your fusions aren't completely terrible, it's despite you rather than because."

Lapis snarled, the gem grabbing for the cylinder at her hip. "You can shut all the way up, Rose! You want to prove you're not afraid of me? Huh?! Tell your Moissanites to take a walk and say it again!"

Rose chuckled, her left hand going up to cover her mouth. It was a musical laugh, rich and natural. Beside her P2 snickered, then pausing to blink and say, "Actually, I don't get it." She looked over at Rose. "Why are fictional Moissanites so humorous?"

Rose's titter faded away and she said to the technician, "Lapis is under the delusion that we need a hold filled with expensive gems to render her powerless." She turned to address Lapis. "This is Era-2, Lapis. We have a box that generates a Moissanite's field around the entire ship. The hardware isn’t even very large." She gave a casual shrug. "Peridot, disable the device. Oh, and Pearl, Peridot, be sure to step back. Lapis has a flair for collateral damage, you see."

P2 jumped. "Disable the field?! I mean, yes, Rose Quartz. One moment." Pearl and P2 retreated a safe distance back across the palm, a hologram appearing and then vanishing in front of the technician. "Field disabled."

Rose looked expectantly down at Lapis. "I'm not afraid of you, Lapis. I haven't even drawn my sword. So?" She made an expansive gesture. "We're all waiting."

A growl like a feral animal ripped out of Lapis. She launched herself forward, wings out, as if fired out of a cannon pointed directly at Rose. Her hydrokinesis restored, water flew into the cylinder in Lapis' hand, extending out and popping into its full hammer shape. Lapis was winding back before it had even finished telescoping out.

At the last second, Rose lunged forward, a large pink bubble expanding out around her. The magical defense caught the hammer, parrying it midswing before Lapis had brought the full leverage of her attack to bear. The mallet bounced back, escaping Lapis' surprised grasp and clattering somewhere to the deck of the handship. In that same instant the bubble vanished and Rose grabbed, large hands encircling Lapis' neck and waist.

Peridot and Connie yelled out in fear and warning, their cry drowning out something Rose said to Lapis. Lapis, however, shrieked and struggled, wings beating furiously. "LET GO OF ME!" she screeched. The two floated up perhaps a foot in the air before Lapis' progress halted, stalled as if Rose suddenly weighed a ton.

The ocean rose up, a thousand panicked fists of water hurtling toward the craft. Then there was a final strangled cry from Lapis as large hands squeezed shut, a cloud of blue smoke, and the thunderous crash of thousands of water fists crashing back to the churning ocean below.

Two arcs of lightning, one yellow, one green, launched toward the pink figure. Faster than thought a wide pink shield appeared on Rose's right arm, the joint galvanic assault blocked entirely.

Rose floated daintily back down, a blue teardrop held in her left hand. She strode over to P2, who had dropped flat to the palm following the attack. "Peridot?"

P2, in a slightly shaky voice, said "Yes Rose?" rising to her gravity connectors behind the cover of the large, pink shield.

Below, Peridot continued to make frightened noises, her primary limb enhancer toggling between offensive modes.

Rose handed the blue teardrop to the technician. "If more than one of the gems below attack me at the same time, if they fuse, if that one goes transparent," and she pointed at Connie, "or if any of them attack you or Pearl, shatter this gemstone." She paused for a beat, then added, "Then vaporize the nearby human settlement."

The mottled gem held the blue gemstone in one clutch of floating fingers while the other turned into blaster mode, a tiny ball of green plasma appearing at the tip and pointed at what was left of Lapis. "Affirmative. The commands have been broadcast to the ship and will be executed the moment I cease countermanding them."

"Roooooose!" roared Jasper, the Quartz absolutely still, not a muscle moving while she bellowed her challenge.

"I thought you'd want to be next, Jasper," cooed Rose. "You always had so much to prove."

Whatever Jasper's thoughts, her response was recreating the 'bring it on' gesture Tiger's Eye had made to the warship.

Rose looked amused. Then, in a tender voice, she said, "My sword?"

Connie blinked, her grip tightening on the sword crackling in her hand. Then Pearl approached and bowed primly, saying in a quiet voice, "Yes, my Rose." Her gemstone glowed and then a large, pink blade, one Connie had seen depicted in murals and heard described in tales, extended up hilt-first.

Hearing Pearl caused something in Connie to jolt excitedly. A part of her hadn't gotten the memo that Pearl had left and was now, apparently, in the service of the enemy. No, a part of Connie heard Pearl's voice and surged with excitement and affection, thrilled that her pale companion was back.

Rose brushed Pearl's cheek affectionately then pulled sword free. "Thank you, Pearl."

Pearl, cheeks flushing slightly, bowed once more and then retreated a respectful distance back. Her eyes fell to Connie's and then immediately fell back to her feet, the blush fading from her face.

As Rose floated softly to the sand below, she said in her musical voice, "Remember that Lapis' life is forfeit if any of you interfere before it's your turn."

Peridot, cheeks wet and teeth clenched, said in a bitter, angry voice, "I will see your hubris repaid a hundredfold if Jasper doesn't do it for me." Then, directed up to the technician atop the handship, she shouted, "And if you so much as scuff that gemstone, I will render you down to your constituent atoms!"

P2 called back, "I'm already comprised of my constituent atoms. That's what 'constituent' means. Your threat is poorly formulated."

 _"Your face is poorly formulated!"_ answered Peridot, another insult rising to her lips before Bismuth laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"Easy, Green. We'll get her back," offered the smith in a confident voice.

"I bet you're happy I'm here, Jasper," purred Rose, sword at the ready but her shield dissolving away.

Jasper took a step forward, helmet appearing on her head.

"I know my little sister is-" Rose glanced sharply at Connie. "-Indisposed. Which means you were at her side until the end. You would never have left your replacement Diamond's side, after all."

Rose and Jasper circled one another carefully. It was strange seeing someone of similar size and build as Jasper. Bismuth was comparable in some ways, but here it was clear to Connie that these were two Quartzes, two large, powerful gems _built_ for fighting who were about to do precisely that.

Jasper shook her head dismissively. "Words."

Rose grinned, sword raised, her other hand going behind her back like a professional fencer. "Yes, we can't all be perfectly inarticulate like you, Jasper. My little sister liked to let her actions do the speaking too. So tell me, Jasper, did she ever say in word or deed why your relationship with her was never what you deep down wanted it to be?"

The Perfect Quartz froze for a beat, then shook her head again, this time less dismissively and more defensively. "More words."

The one-time founder of the Rebellion sighed and rolled her eyes. "That was part of it, actually. You're nothing but duty and stubbornness personified, Jasper. You don't need magical sight to know you have nothing to offer but servitude, and Citrine didn't even need to love you to get th-aah!"

In circling her opponent, eyes on Jasper, Rose's boot had stepped onto the edge of the trench. The sand crushed underfoot, giving way and causing Rose to slip back momentarily off-balance. Jasper lunged forward with incredible speed, the mistake capitalized on in an instant.

Almost faster than Connie's eyes could follow, and certainly too fast for her to say anything, Rose's stagger was arrested and her surprised look became a smirking one. Falling feather-slow, Rose twisted in a tight spin, her sword swinging out in a sharp downward strike. Jasper reacted, angling her head so the blow deflected off her helmet. However, Rose's right hand flew out from behind her back, a pronged, shortsword-length instrument ending in a yellow crystal gripped tightly in it. Jasper reached out to catch the unexpected stab and in the instant before she made contact, Rose did something that caused it to crackle with yellow energy.

Yellow lines extended out from the point of contact, looking reminiscent of circuitry as they raced up the Warrior's arm. Then the arm dissolved and Rose was able to continue the jab through to her opponent's center of mass. The Perfect Quartz grunted, teeth clenched, her remaining hand grabbing Rose's wrist. However, the yellow lines radiated out, a lethal filigree permeating the hard light body. Jasper, the unstoppable Quartz, who had weathered blows that made even other gems flinch, who Connie had seen hurt but never cowed, began to dissolve, disintegrating from the chest outward until she exploded into a cloud of orange smoke.

With a nimble bit of swordplay, Rose brought the flat of her blade around in an upswing, catching the gemstone like a badminton racquet striking the shuttlecock. The orange stone sailed up and up, P2 jolting in place and then running pell-mell after it.

"I've got it!" she cried.

Pearl, however, took two steps over and daintily caught it in an outstretched hand as the mottled technician barreled past, sorely off-target. Just as primly she handed the gem to P2, who stammered some excuse about atmospheric disturbances.

Before the orange smoke had a chance to clear, even before P2 had started sprinting across the handship's palm, a bolt of green plasma flew at the center of Rose's mass. A protective bubble engulfed the gem, the walls clear enough that Connie could see the surprise on Rose's face.

In that fraction of a second, a light of recall blazed through Connie, a passage from her mother's journal flashing through her thoughts. _My powers, and perhaps yours as well, are active. They must be willed forth so that I may act, fight, and win. Rose's powers are reactive, instinctual. She defends from attacks before she fully registers them._

But all of that passed by as a flash of neurons, the essence of understanding without time for unpacking that into something so cumbersome as words. In response --also too fast to be parsed, only felt-- was a wave of fear. They were losing. They were losing badly _and Homeworld played for keeps._

Two more plasma bolts struck Rose's bubble, the gem only now floating down to the bottom of the trench. Peridot switched to an arc of electricity and, when that failed to penetrate the enemy's defenses, seized the bubble with her tractor beam. "I will devise a means of making you suffer my wrath!" shouted the gem as she flung the bubble in the direction of the beach Bismuth had warned them about.

The bubble dissolved, the tractor beam destabilizing along with its target, and Rose's momentum was halted as she did something funny with her inertia, dropping like a lead brick to the sand between Peridot and the explosives-laced beach. She did something with her wrist which caused the two-pronged destabilizer to shut off and collapse, the gem tucking it away in some pocket or holster behind her back. Another arc of electricity crackled toward Rose, but this time it grounded harmlessly against her shield.

Connie was bringing her sword to bear, lining up a shot on Rose --because an unlikely victory was better than certain defeat-- when Bismuth shoved her. Connie looked over, shock and outrage warring for room on her face, when the smith, setting down her golf bag of weapons, shook her head. "I'll win this. I've got a plan but Green beat me to the punch."

Rose, meanwhile, had advanced, a phalanx of one weathering a barrage of energetic attacks behind her perfect defense. Peridot had tractor beamed a rock overhead and then fired off a trio of blasts, trying to split Rose's attention, but between shield and bubble, the pink Quartz had complete protective coverage.

Curls of smoke were rising from Peridot's primary limb enhancer. A growl emerged from Peridot's throat, but Connie could see a brilliant intellect working feverishly behind all the fearful desperation.

With a whirring noise, Peridot's floating fingers became a helicopter pointed horizontally, the technician charging towards Rose like a jousting knight. Rose's bubble fell away, shield set to receive the charge, sword poised to follow through. Then, at the last possible second, Peridot's primary limb enhancer toggled to tractor beam mode and was shot _sideways_ at the bulk of the handship. As the handship didn't budge, Peridot was instead yanked aside while her tethered finger crackled with yellow energy. The swipe was intercepted by a bubble, but the bubble dissolved on contact. What also dissolved on contact was Rose's sword arm up to the elbow, the large sword dropping to the ground.

"Wow. What a clever, foolhardy display," remarked P2 to Pearl, the technician following the fight with wide-eyed excitement.

“I see you’ve been _disarmed_ ,” cackled Peridot triumphantly, adding a ‘Nyehehehe’ while she was accelerating away, when Rose whipped forward with her right hand, the shield flying free to smack heavily into the green gem. This disrupted Peridot’s tractor beam causing her to land in a fast-moving heap, rolling to a stop across the sand.

Rose was weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks as she dropped to her knees. As soon as the first droplets touched her stump there was a glow and the limb was swiftly restored. Rose picked up her sword and strode towards Peridot.

With a nod to P2, Rose said, "Agreed. She's very good with that tech of hers. That it hasn't fallen completely apart by now is impressive by itself."

Peridot scrambled to her feet, spitting sand out of her mouth, one of her lenses still caked over with the stuff. Seeing Rose nearly upon her, she yelped and jumped backwards, her floating fingers already whirling up to speed and giving her lift. Rose lunged upward, sword out to the side ready to swing, the jump taking her higher and faster than someone her weight should have been capable of even with superhuman strength.

With another noise of surprise, Peridot jinked and dodged frantically, Rose soaring past her. Then Rose flipped around and kicked off the side of the handship, going even faster then before if that was possible. Peridot had no chance to dodge that and the two collided midair. Once again something funny happened with inertia, Rose and Peridot stopping almost in place only to then plummet to the ground.

When they landed a great pink bubble expanded out, larger than any Connie had seen before, large enough that Peridot was _trapped inside_ with Rose.

Peridot tried to bring her blaster to bear but the sword lashed out, cutting the enhancer off at the 'wrist'. Even muffled by the bubble, Peridot's cry was heart-rending.

Still, the technician didn’t falter for more than a second, launching the remnants of her ruined enhancer at Rose to reveal a comparatively tiny, green hand beneath. She then jabbed with her secondary --now only-- enhancer, but Rose met the disruptor strike on her shield, ignoring the ejected hardware as it clipped her shoulder ineffectually. Another swing and the much-battered enhancer was cleaved apart, the yellow energy running up the tethered fingers winking out in an instant.

Then Rose allowed her shield to vanish and she grabbed Peridot, slamming her bodily into the sand. What followed was less combat and more like an oyster being _shucked_ , every vestige of Peridot's tech carved free from her and cast dismissively aside.

The giant bubble dissolved and Rose stood up, a Peridot who was both defeated and _tinier_ dangling limply in the grip of one large hand. Rose chucked her forward and the small, green gem hit the sand and half-bounced, half-rolled to a stop, offering only a pained moan in response.

Rose gathered up the savaged tech into a pile, summoned her shield, and then lowered it down like a trash compactor. There was a shower of sparks and a short-lived green flame before whatever life was left in the hardware had been well and truly ground out of it.

Then she stood and walked triumphantly towards Peridot, sword pointed forward. "You're clever with your tech but completely harmless without it." She dropped her sword arm to her side in a contemptuous gesture. "You're not even worth poofing," she spat out, a giant that couldn't be bothered to end the whimpering thing beneath her boot.

She turned her back on Peridot then paused and said, "I'm told you're protective of my niece-" and Connie felt her blood turn to ice at the phrase. "Convince her to surrender and maybe I won't cut her down to size as well."

"Surrender?" interjected Bismuth, the smith rummaging through her golf bag, the snub-nosed cannon resting within reach. "That sounds more like your schtick."

With slow movements of her sword, Rose brushed the tiny limb enhancer fragments off her shield, all while her eyes were locked on Bismuth. The motion made a long, drawn out metal-on-glass rasp that set Connie's teeth on edge, little bits of tech raining down at the pink gem's feet. "Really?" asked Rose, her expression flat.

_Raaasssp._

Bismuth gestured at the emblem at Rose's chest. "Once Citrine traded her diamond for a star, she never traded back. She fought and you surrendered. She won and you lost. It's kind of a theme with you two, isn't it?"

Rose began to walk slowly toward Bismuth, eyes narrowed but her voice was casual. "You'll have to remind me, where were you in the last stage of the war? It's like you were there one day and then gone the next. Did you lose your faith, your favor, or just your nerve?" and Rose's tone was harsh by the end.

The smith laughed, a chuckle crescendoing into a guffaw. She reached up with the hand hovering over the snub-nosed cannon and wiped at one eye. "I've missed you, Pink. I really have. The thing is, everyone saw Citrine and thought she was the dangerous one. Yellow was plenty dangerous, I'll give them that, but she didn't hide it. But you? You're a dagger hidden in a bouquet of flowers, smiling right up until you poof someone." Bismuth's smile widened, a predatory cast appearing on her features, one large arm buried in her golf bag. "Well, I'm smiling right now too. Want to find out why?"

Connie had circled the combatants to stand beside a tearful Peridot, her sword held out protectively. That wasn't just her supporting her disarmed guardian; whatever Bismuth had in mind involved some amount of explosives so a healthy distance was, well, healthy.

Rose halted, seemingly unnerved. Then she drew back her shoulders, effortlessly sliding into a calm and commanding persona. "You never answered my question, Bismuth? Did my little sister cast you out or did you run?"

Another chuckle from Bismuth. "Yeah, keep hitting that wall, Pink. Maybe you'll crack it eventually. But I think I'll crack you first. See, I've got this-" and Bismuth stood up, the arm in her golf bag emerging with something heavy strapped to it. It had a metal plunger like the head of a nail emerging from the back, a long, menacing spike of dark metal extending out the front, and a star emblazoned on the side that was painted with every color of Bismuth's gemstone. "-And it's the reason you're wearing that shattered diamond on your chest. If you miss your precious Pink Diamond so much, maybe you'll appreciate going out the same way she did."

Bismuth's left hand was holding the miniature cannon. Then she shapeshifted, her forearm becoming a cylinder with the snub-nosed cannon socketed within, effectively turning her left arm into the barrel of a tank. Thusly armed, Bismuth shrugged casually. "Or maybe not. Either way it means one less Homeworld elite in the galaxy."

Connie put a force field between her and the combatants. She had been working on a half-formed plan to assault P2 if Rose lost but this train of thought derailed as she stared at Bismuth. "That's the Breaking Point Mom used to shatter Pink Diamond?"

Peridot leaned against Connie, sniffling and piteous. "No," she said eventually. "The piece of hardware you extracted from Wolf's pocket dimension is stored in my workshop and is damaged beyond use. I believe that is the secret project Bismuth has been laboring on over recent months."

Connie's inner Steven was running in circles and shouting about how wrong this shattering _Bismuth_ was. For a second she considered- But no, she had an assault to plan. Maybe with Rose gone, Wolf would answer her summons --she'd 'pinged' him with that nameless power of hers several times already but he'd refused them all-- and then he could warp her up to the palm of the handship in time for her to capture P2. Perhaps, demoralized or threatened, P2 could be compelled to surrender, stopping the pre-programmed razing of Beach City.

For some reason, Connie found city-wide destruction an easier thought to contemplate than actually facing Steven after this was all over.

Bismuth charged Rose, the pink gem's mouth a tight line as she raised shield and sword to meet her. At the moment before impact, Rose's bubble appeared but was immediately burst by Bismuth's spike. She half-blocked, half-slammed Bismuth with her shield but Bismuth spun to one side while delivering a hammering strike directly into the face of the shield.

With a sound like shattering glass, the signature defense of the perfect defender was destroyed.

Eyes wide and watering with tears, Rose lashed out with her sword, which Bismuth parried on her spike while giving a raucous laugh. The two struggled in a contest of strength for a second. "Nice sword," quipped Bismuth, eyes locked on her opponent, her grin wide indeed. "Good craftsmanship."

Rather than answer, Rose twisted sideways, rotating her sword free and delivering a quick jab to the chest with her pommeled hand, not something that would hurt Bismuth so much as drive her off-balance so Rose had room to retrieve the folded up destabilizer from before. She jabbed out, the tines crackling with yellow energy and Bismuth had to jump back to avoid it.

A sword blow was parried and Bismuth brought her knee up to catch Rose's elbow, the destabilizer popping out of her grasp and landing on the ground. With a grin, Bismuth jabbed with her Breaking Point, sword and spike locking yet again as sparks jumped from the point of contact between them.

Rose gave a mighty shove, pushing Bismuth back a step then leaping up and back with that implausible lightness she'd exhibited before. Bismuth got her balance, swung her cannon arm to bear, and then fired. Unlike the light cannons fired from the porch, which launched large, coherent spheres of energy, this one fired a cloud of hundreds of beams in a wide-angle spray that vanished after only a dozen or so feet: a shotgun blast to the other's artillery shell.

Rose's shield was half-summoned when the shot raked her so she only took the barrage across her sword arm, left cheek, and legs. Her weeping was having an effect before she'd even touched down on the sand and beach grass-dotted battlefield.

Bismuth blasted the destabilizer into smithereens with her cannon arm then jogged after. Connie couldn't help but notice they were headed in the direction of the explosives-laced beach.

"Come on, Pink. Why aren't you trying to talk me in circles, make me slip up?" pressed Bismuth. She fired a scatter shot at Rose seemingly just to keep her off balance, the few beams that survived the distance pattering harmlessly off her shield.

When Rose landed, injuries healed and clothing mending itself back together, she assumed another defensive stance and was silent.

"Well, I love weapons, Pink, so if you won't grab this one then I will," said Bismuth with a sigh, jogging to melee distance. Rose, tears dripping from her cheeks, summoned no bubble this time, instead using sword and shield to parry Bismuth's attacks, probing the smith's defenses without ever lowering her own. When Bismuth, locked in another Breaking Point-to-sword struggle, tried to fire her cannon at one of Rose's feet, Rose leapt up, kicking Bismuth in the face and using the force of the kick launch herself back, putting room once more between the pair.

"You had a good thing going with Citrine," called Bismuth, not particularly phased by the blow she'd received. "She loved you, fought for your vision of Earth, and took care of all the messier parts of winning a war." She fired the snub-nosed cannon at Rose, once more just past its effective range. "But when winning would have required the first actual sacrifice on your part, you split. You made Citrine work twice as hard, made her beat you _and_ Homeworld at once. And the hilarious thing is, she did it! Everything you wanted, she did it and did it better. Even when you started feeding intel to Homeworld; even after you ran crying back to your Diamond."

The two exchanged blows once more, Connie braced behind her force field for some sudden explosion. Peridot kept oscillating between limb-clutching moans and acting as a Socratic sounding board for Connie's strategy, the gem riding an emotional roller coaster Connie associated more with Lapis than Peridot. However, Connie did everything she could to focus on the fight at hand.

It wasn't that she was indifferent to Peridot's plight --in almost any other situation she'd be clutching her guardian and meeting her sob for sob-- but right now she had so many emotional crises queued up that she couldn't focus on _any_ of them. Instead she tried to figure out a path to victory and ignore the frantic voice of her inner Steven.

"It was really about ego, wasn't it, Pink?" Bismuth accepted a sword raking across one broad shoulder so she could sunder Rose's shield yet again. Where the shield had been, Bismuth brought her cannon arm up point-blank and it was only the partially forming bubble that spared Rose the worst of it. Bismuth ripped the bubble apart and was preparing another shot when Rose dropped low, first slamming into Bismuth’s midsection with her shoulder, then rising up and headbutting Bismuth's jaw.

The smith's mouth slammed shut with a wince-inducing _CLACK!_

Spikes speared out from the sides of Bismuth's cannon arm and she tried to pull Rose into a bear hug but the pink Quartz pulsed her bubble --summoning and then immediately unsummoning it-- to shove her opponent back and escape. The problem, and the reason for Bismuth's shockingly quick recovery, was that Rose had been crying throughout and some of her tears had splashed onto Bismuth's form when the two of them had grappled.

Rolling a broad shoulder that had previously been injured, Bismuth chuckled. "Thanks for the assist, Pink. Get a little closer, though, because I've got a hit you can't cry yourself back from," and Bismuth waggled the spike strapped to her right arm. "Anyway, I've been thinking about it since I got back, especially after I had a good long talk with Garnet-"

Rose's teary eyes snapped open wide and she seemed shocked to hear that name.

"-and that really was it. Ego. You left in a huff and then it wasn't your victory anymore, it was Citrine's. You couldn't stand that." The smith stalked forward across the grassy beach, Breaking Point held ready for a shattering strike. Her smile dimmed some and her voice grew harsher, more accusatory. "But the thing is, Citrine got pinker after you left. Bad enough she had to win your war even with you fighting her. No, she got softer because... I don't know why! But she did; she wouldn't do what _really_ needed to be done, to not just win but win completely. My long nap? That's as much your fault as anyone's, you egotistical, hypocritical, selfish piece of schist!" Bismuth strode forward to the top of a tiny dune dotted with sand grass and assorted debris. Drawing in a deep breath, Bismuth threw her arms wide and bellowed, _"Answer me!"_

Tears streaming down her face, Rose said in a clear voice, "Attack."

All at once the beach became a mass of movement, tendrils of green writhing up and thrashing, the sand grass transformed and animated. Hundreds of thick coils lashed out, wrapping around Bismuth's legs, then around the thick trunk of her midsection. The smith struggled, the sides of her cannon arm becoming sharply bladed, which she swung back and forth to try and keep her arms free. The Breaking Point, however, was poorly suited to hacking, and the metal straps securing it to her arm meant that Bismuth couldn't shapeshift that arm freely.

Rose walked forward unhurriedly, an easy smile on her lips. "My soldiers are very attentive when I speak. If I'd held up my end of the conversation, it would have spoiled the surprise." Rope-like vines had finally gotten ahold of Bismuth's arms, each pulled tightly down at forty-five degree angles like the smith was tied down to a whipping block. "Then again, the only thing I have to say to you is, 'Goodbye Bismuth.'"

As Rose drew back to strike Bismuth laughed and, if Connie wasn't mistaken, shot the pink Quartz a wink. The girl didn't have time to contemplate this turn of events, though, because Bismuth fired her cannon arm directly into the sand which caused the crystal spheres buried there to explode. This caused a chain reaction, detonating the rest of the spheres until that entire section of beach was a giant fireball, sand and flaming debris flying in every direction.

Connie squinted, ears ringing, trying to blink past the spots in her eyes to see what the heck had just happened.

That swath of beach was a landscape of reddish-blue flames and rippling heat. In the very middle was a figure in a bubble. But then another figure, broad-shouldered and laughing, strode unharmed through the flames and punctured the bubble with the sharp thing strapped to her wrist. The first figure tried to leap away but was grabbed by the ankle and slammed back down into the flaming terrain.

"Smart! But I did some gardening of my own, Pink. Pretty spicy, don’t you think?" taunted Bismuth over the fallen, burning opponent. Another bubble tried to form but was destroyed with ease. “No bubbles, Pink. Right now one of us burns with the fire of rebellion and the other... just burns.”

The spear of the Breaking Point descended, a shield appearing to stop it. Like Rose's act of compressing Peridot's tech into scrap, Bismuth simply pressed harder, the sound of the shield buckling as the point drew inexorably closer to Rose's navel.

"Goodbye Rose."

A beam of green light descended from above, hauling a surprised and struggling Bismuth into the air. With swift movement, Rose lunged for the sword that had been blown free of her grasp. It looked like Bismuth tried to make a wild shot with her cannon arm but nothing happened, the device ruined in the heat unlike Bismuth or her Breaking Point. Trapped in a defenseless position, Bismuth was helpless to stop the sword that plunged into her torso, the smith bursting into a cloud of smoke a beat later.

The green beam shut off and three things dropped to the sand, Rose snatching up the gemstone and, with a frenzied shout, kicking the Breaking Point as far away from her as she could get it, the weapon landing with a distant splash.

Rose looked a fright, two-thirds of her curls blackened or burned away, her outfit burnt where it wasn't destroyed, and her skin was a patchwork red welts and soot. However, all of this, hair, clothes, and body, were restoring themselves, healthy, pink skin steadily gaining ground wherever it wasn't actively on fire.

"Before we landed you said to interfere if it looked like you were going to lose," called P2, the technician and Pearl standing on the handship where they could watch the fighting below. While Pearl looked like a statue carved into a pose of worried obeisance, P2 was extremely animated, floating fingers flying about in excited formations, the gem making little hops from side to side as if too energetic to remain still. "Admittedly I'm not a warrior caste gem, but that looked pretty lose-y to me."

In a voice harsh with either rebuke or heat-damaged vocal cords, Rose called up, "It wasn't as near as it might have looked, but I'll consider my order followed to satisfaction."

This seemed to please P2, who rocked on her gravity connectors, adding, "It was a very impressive display."

Rose, free of the flames and looking less like an overcooked campfire marshmallow, said in a pleased tone. "Thank you."

P2 stopped bouncing, her floating fingers snapping back into place. In part this was to offer a yellow zap to each of the gemstones in her care, but mostly it was so she'd have hands to gesticulate with. "Actually, I was referring to the rebels. When you volunteered to join this mission I thought the rebels would be trivial obstacles. However, they proved to be quite tenacious. I think I understand better why this colony proved a challenge for..."

Rose didn't say anything and Connie wasn't in a position to see her face, but the look she gave to the technician was enough to get the mottled gem's mouth to snap shut.

Connie rose unsteadily to her feet, having been crouched beside Peridot. The icy fear from earlier surged to the fore, making it difficult to keep her knees from buckling.

Smart enemies were _terrifying_ , especially ones that walked out of infernos, actively healing despite the flames like the T-1000.

Drawing a deep breath, Connie raised her crackling sword into an offensive position.

"Connie! No!" cried Peridot.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but..." Her voice faded out and she shook her head, saying only, "I'm sorry."

Then she locked eyes on Rose and saw... hesitation? An instant later and the Quartz had slipped back into a calm and commanding persona, but something felt wrong.

Connie was confused.

Throwing caution to the wind, Connie reached out with that indescribable sense of hers, the world went silent, the sword falling through her ghostly fingers and dissolving into motes of light.

Faster than Connie could blink (not that blinking mattered when your eyelids were see-through) Rose was engulfed in a pink bubble, her face livid. In her mind's eye, Connie saw four 'scapes.

One was Peridot's and it was precisely as bleak a sight as Connie had guessed, save for a blinding streak of protective fear running right through the middle of the pattern.

One was a swirl of carefully channeled curiosity, all painted in bright colors of enthusiasm and excitement. Even the motes of fear were tinged with exhilaration, probably like one might see from someone mid-skydive.

One was a fractal tapestry, beautiful but circumscribed, aspirational heights and depressive lows, sadness and hope, love and hate, all tightly bound within bands of devotion. The strangest thing was that the bands of devotion were binding one another in a lattice-like structure, one that was straining as if pulled in two or more directions.

And one was bathed in a pink radiance identical to a certain bubble, one which Connie could see but not touch through the protective glow. It was many things, many beautiful and terrible things, but one emotion blazed brightest.

Just as the handship was beginning to rotate to point toward Beach City the sounds and sensations of the world came rushing back. "Stop!" shouted Connie as loud as she could manage.

The bubble surrounding Rose vanished but her mask of rage remained.

"Wait!" shouted Connie once more. "I surrender!" She inhaled a little soot, likely a carbonized fleck of a former plant soldier, and coughed and spat for a few, undignified seconds. "Don't hurt anyone else and I'll- You can take me on your ship and I won't fight."

Peridot was sobbing beside Connie, from despair or relief, it was impossible to tell. At this point there might not be a difference.

The handship froze, neither continuing toward the town or returning to its previous heading. P2 looked down and, in a loud voice, asked, "Should I accept their surrender?"

Rose strode forward, sword clenched in her left hand with a white-knuckle grip. In a tight voice, she said to P2 without her eyes ever leaving Connie's, "Yes, provided she doesn't struggle."

Peridot yelped, "Please! Don't harm her! Don’t harm my Connie! We're surrendering!"

In a tight voice, Rose said, "Whatever I do to her can be healed later." Then she turned her sword over in her hand and brought the rounded hilt of the sword into Connie's face. Hard.

Earlier Connie had seen that Rose was, on a level so deep it was practically fundamental to her pattern, afraid of her. Wrath, pride, confidence: all had been struggling to overcome a gem-deep fear at facing Connie. She’d seen this and she’d made a leap of faith.

But just then all Connie saw was a burst of light, felt pain that seemed too large for her head to contain, and then darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promo was drawn by MJStudioArts. The in-chapter art was created by BurdenKing and MJStudioArts.
> 
>  **Edit** : Culi, the gem Rose mentioned in her fight with Lapis, was a rebel sharpshooter and a Novaculite. She has [a statue visible at Citrine's Sanctuary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13600485/chapters/31222014) and you can learn more about her in the brief, canon omake [Caught Off Balance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33712806). The nickname 'Culi' was in part to distinguish her from 'Nova', the Novaculite we saw accompany P2 to the Galaxy Warp in [Colored Perception](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356601/chapters/41192816) and was the POV character in the canon omake [Escape from Homeworld](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33132777). In contrast with Culi, Nova was a lousy shot but a talented warp pad technician.
> 
> Way back in Episode 4, Jasper had a mantra about the various Quartzes:  
>  _Rose Quartzes know empathy._  
>  _Jaspers know endurance._  
>  _Amethysts know camaraderie._  
>  _Carnelians know passion._  
>  _Citrines know confidence._  
>  Here we got to see the truth of that first line, because Rose _does_ know empathy. Knows it and has weaponized it.
> 
> Well, that was certainly exciting. But the ride isn't over yet; not even close! We'll see you Wednesday, June 12th for the next exciting installment of _The Return!_
> 
> Here's the internal model for Rose, created by the ever-talented MJ:  
> 
> 
> Got some great content to mention as well. First, I want to point out with great pleasure the latest, hilarious, and delightfully absurd omake by Cyberwraith9. The tonal whiplash of this omake going up at the same time as _The Return_ is spectacular and makes me appreciate the fic all the more.  
> *) [Connieswap Meets the Harlem Globetrotters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/45379873) by [Cyberwraith9](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyberwraith9/pseuds/Cyberwraith9) \- "The Harlem Globetrotters have come to Delmarva, and are burning up the court of the Ocean Town Memorial Arena with their signature style! But what's this? Their perennial opponents, the Washington Generals, are looking a little more colorful than usual. Can our favorite sultans of swish defeat a bunch of polymorphic sentient rocks in a game of basketball? No!"
> 
> Secondly, there's a new Peridot's What-If which happens to be pretty relevant to parts of this episode.  
> *) [What if Bismuth hadn’t been bubbled the whole time and had helped raise Connie?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265302/chapters/45143071) by [br42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- "Full-time _Bismuth_."
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	3. Situation in Hand

Darkness. Connie's face hurt. Kind of a lot. Eyes still shut, she brought a hand to the right side of her head and winced, letting the hand fall back to the floor.

Correction: her face hurt a _whole_ lot.

Blearily Connie opened an eye a crack and saw pink. She'd never thought much of pink before but a corner of her suspected this would elevate the color into full on 'dislike' territory. Maybe even aversion. She retreated back to the comforting darkness behind her eyelids, though that made the throbbing of the right side of her face stand out more.

Ow.

Rolling onto her left side, knees curling close to her chest, memories began to trickle in. Connie wasn't happy about this fact but she did things like frown or furrow her brows when she tried to avoid waking up and right now that was literally a pain.

Alert. Evacuation. Steven -- and the pit of Connie's stomach froze over into a little skating rink of complicated feelings. The handship. The barrage. Rose. Rose and Lapis. Rose and Jasper. Rose and Peridot. Rose and Bismuth. Bismuth's Breaking Point -- and a voice in her head like Steven's started to make some worried noises before she managed to shush it. Oh, and Rose hitting her in the face. Hard.

At least that was one mystery solved. A wry corner of Connie's mind awarded herself a Peripoint.

With the right side of her face radiating pain the way a lamp radiated light, with an unpleasantly acrid taste in her mouth, and with the floor of wherever she was --probably the handship-- feeling cold and uncomfortable, Connie rose awkwardly on one elbow and (gingerly) rubbed the tears from her eyes before opening them.

She was in a cell. A very pink cell. She was wearing her clothes but was missing her winter coat, her power sink, and the saber she'd had on her hip. Her pant pockets were empty. The cell wasn't very deep, maybe six feet, but it was wide enough for her to lay flat with room to spare and tall enough she wouldn't be able to jump up and touch the ceiling. It was lit by a pervasive pink glow, featureless... except for the door.

The door to Connie's cell was a row of thick, vertical bars. There was a gap of about two inches between each and said gap was filled with crackling yellow energy that was a subtly different color from her force fields. The bars were the wrong shade of pink and there were tiny seams visible where they met floor and ceiling: a lifetime with Peridot meant she easily recognized the signs of something having been welded on after the fact.

In the distance she _thought_ she heard a voice but it was audible only as the faintest of disruptions in the omnipresent, low hum that was felt through the floor as much as it was heard with the ears. Connie plugged her ears just to make sure it wasn't an auditory hallucination; she'd had a few fleeting ones since regaining her hearing and the fact that this one _almost_ sounded like Peridot had her suspicious. 

_No, not a hallucination,_ she thought, sitting upright, fingers in her ears, one eye half-closed and hurting like the dickens.

Reaching out with that indefinable sense of hers, Connie thought of Peridot, of Jasper, of Lapis, and Bismuth. She thought of Steven but was relieved when she remained tangible. She thought of Rose and P2. She thought of Pearl and suddenly her face stopped hurting, a quiet world becoming absolutely silent.

Apprehension competed with excitement in the fractal tapestry visible to Connie's mind's eye.

First a familiar, pointed nose came into view, then the elegant gem herself appeared in front of the bars of Connie's cell. She gave a timid wave and said what looked like 'Hello Connie' before --with an accompanying flare of guilt and propriety in her mindscape-- she clasped her hands in front of her and lowered her eyes to her feet, mumbling something from lips too obscured for Connie to attempt to read them.

Connie rose to her insubstantial feet and, about sixty seconds later, felt the weight and aches and sounds of a material body return. "Hi Pearl," said Connie, suddenly feeling very awkward. Should she be mad at Pearl? Should she try and talk her into the cell, summon her sword, and then hold her hostage as part of some daring escape plan? Even seeing that splash of pink on Pearl's outfit wasn't enough to overcome habit: feeling angry at Pearl just felt _wrong_.

One of the frustrating things about not being a heroine in a story was that she had to figure out what to do instead of just letting the action unfold one page at a time: even if Connie didn't unravel the mystery of the Maize Maze, she could just keep reading and Lisa and Archimicarus would figure it out themselves. Sadly, the story of _How Connie Saved Everyone from the Handship_ was one that refused to let Connie skip ahead.

Lost in her own head, Connie raised a hand to rub her eye and instantly regretted it, a gasp of pain escaping her lips.

Pearl's head popped up and her mouth became an 'o' of shock. "Of course, oh, your poor face. My sincerest apologies, Connie." Tapping something on the wall outside Connie's cell, the yellow field vanished and the barred door unlocked with a 'clunk'. Then, with a kind of apologetic hustle, Pearl stepped through, _left the field off and the door open,_ and approached Connie while raising a slight hand to her gemstone.

A corner of Connie's mind was already going through the steps to disable the opponent and flee, but then the faceless figure in her imagination was replaced with Pearl and the whole mental scenario ground to a halt. Connie, one eye swelled half-closed, stared at the wide-open cell and then at Pearl as if to say, _Uh, did you forget something?_

Ignoring Connie's failed attempt at telepathy, Pearl's hand lowered from her stone holding a small pink vial containing a clear liquid. With feather-light touches from cool fingers, Pearl delicately raised Connie's chin, unstoppered the vial, and dribbled the contents going right to left across Connie's features.

Steven had described what getting 'recharged' by Connie had felt like, where she'd taken his aches and pains and injuries into herself so he could keep fighting. He'd said it was suddenly feeling none of those things where they'd just been, kind of like how Connie herself felt when she turned insubstantial.

This wasn't like that. Her pain didn't vanish but rather there was a feeling of spreading warmth --like the world's best hug while snuggled under the world's comfiest blanket-- that made the pain feel okay. Everything would be alright, she was loved and cared for, and would you look at that? The pain was gone along with every other bodily complaint.

Connie stood there and blinked, surprised by a lot of things right then including the fact that said blinking didn't hurt in the slightest. She also felt an overwhelming urge to hug Pearl, but whether that was a side effect of the healing or an internally-derived impulse was anyone's guess.

Pearl stoppered the vial and returned it with a faint glow back into her gemstone. She offered Connie an appraising look and then a hopeful smile. "It looks better, but how do you feel?"

Another blink. "B-Better. Much better," stammered Connie, a part of her silently yelling at her to, ya know, walk out of her cell and _go do something heroic!_ "Thank you. Um, what was that?"

Retrieving an embroidered, white handkerchief, Pearl dabbed Connie's face with brisk but gentle efficiency. "Rose's tears. I carry a supply of them for her. I've been checking on you since you were brought aboard and you looked so peaceful sleeping that, foolish me, I didn't even think of healing you. Once again, I'm sincerely sorry for my oversight." The handkerchief vanished back into the oblong gemstone and a pale, contrite face filled Connie's view.

_Okay, I'm healed. Great! Nooow... escape! 1-2-3-escape! Ready? Set-_

Connie stepped forward and pulled Pearl into a hug, eyes closed, cheek smooshed against the gem's chest. Light but firm arms encircled her back and the weight of what was probably Pearl's chin came to rest on Connie's head.

 _I- But- Alright, I give up... ... Okay, this is a pretty awesome hug,_ that corner of Connie begrudgingly conceded.

A few seconds later there was a strange sound overhead that caused Connie to pull back. Face turned to the side, Pearl was quietly sobbing, cheeks glistening with moisture. "Pearl?"

The lithe gem turned so her back was to Connie and she spent another minute or so composing herself, a different handkerchief --this one blue-- appearing from her gemstone in time for a surprisingly loud nose blow before vanishing back once more. As before, Connie eyed the unlocked and open cell door with wary disbelief.

Turning to face Connie again, Pearl clasped her hands in front of her and said in a soft voice, "My apologies. It's just such a profoundly ambivalent experience to see you again. Rather, I'm so happy to see you again but these are far from ideal auspices. I was certain you'd be cross with me given my new master, and the scene at the beach, why, I was beside myself with worry even though Rose did say she was going to try not to fight you if she could help it."

Connie staggered back a step and looked around for anything to sit on. Pearl, seeing this, reached up with two hands and came back from her gemstone with a wooden box, probably two feet to a side, labeled 'Milk'. She was about to set it on the cell floor when Connie, who had at least a modicum of sense to her name, asked, "Would it be okay if we, uh, spoke out in the hall?"

Pearl agreed immediately and led her out into a long, pink hallway closed at one end and ending in a T-intersection at the other. There were ten cells set in the walls, five to a side: Connie's was the last one on the right and the only one with bars, the rest enclosed only with the crackling yellow fields.

Setting the box down, Pearl retrieved another labeled 'Beans' and sat briskly upon it, long legs folded in front of her too-short seat. "Yes Connie?" she asked, eyes sad but her mouth, an earnest smile.

 _Wow, where to begin?_ Connie ran a hand through her hair and tried to cudgel her thoughts into order. Better just start with the obvious one so that that corner of her would stop grumbling. "Pearl, am I not a prisoner?"

The smile dimmed. "I was allowed to check on you and told that, after you were awake and recovered, to bring you to Rose so the two of you could speak. I was not told to restrain you though Rose did warn me that you might be violent upon waking. However, I would feel... obligated to alert her if you attempted to flee or damage the ship outright."

Connie gave Pearl a searching look. "And if I don't think I'll feel recovered for another five minutes then... we can talk?"

Pearl nodded. "Yes, I don't see the problem with that."

_Did Pearl just wink or did I imagine it?_

Offering an inward sigh, Connie said, "I thought you were returning to the gem you served before the Rebellion. Why are you with Rose?"

The lithe gem sat there with perfect posture and yet, somehow, she appeared to shrink in on herself. Was it really just her chin dipping a little? It occurred to Connie that Pearl had _very_ expressive body language despite (or because of) how meticulously she carried herself.

"Upon returning to Homeworld space, I learned that the gem I once served-" and there was a faint tremor in Pearl's voice, "-had been missing in action and presumed shattered since the mid-point of the Rebellion. I thought when she left and failed to return that she had been waylaid, captured and later ransomed, called back, or forced to return to Homeworld prematurely. She was certainly important enough to be evacuated. I kept her spire intact for her for so long, worried, certainly, but never willing to believe that..." and Pearl's voice trailed off to a whisper too quiet to be heard.

She needed another minute to regain her composure and Connie started to wonder just how many different, fancy handkerchiefs she had in her gemstone.

"Once I discovered I was a Pearl without an owner I feared the worst. It is very déclassé to accept a second-hand Pearl so many are embedded and the ones that aren't are given to members of the coarser castes." The trepidation in her voice was clear, but then a warmth crept in, the gem looking almost cheery despite, somehow, changing almost nothing about her poise or posture. "However, very soon after, Rose visited the station Amethyst and I had arrived at and offered to have me as her Pearl. You may recall that she and I had met when her rebels used the largely vacant Sand Spire as a staging ground; she even invited me into her service then though I demurred, thinking my owner merely delayed. Seeing her on the station was purest serendipity, and that she not only remembered me but would accept me as her own... It was more than I deserved and certainly more than I could have expected."

A long second stretched into two before Connie asked, "Are Quartzes high ranking?" According to Peridot --who had taught a module on Homeworld's caste system in tandem with their lesson about the various types of gems-- they were not.

"Not as a rule, no," offered Pearl diplomatically; possibly because she was, in a roundabout way, talking to one right now. "However, Rose is. Near the end of the war, she was elevated by Pink Diamond herself to a position that affords her considerable authority and autonomy. The Pink Court has been retained, only the emblem has changed-" and Pearl gestured to the small, cracked diamond on her otherwise monochrome outfit. "-Since their Diamond's shattering, so my Rose continues to operate in a position only a few steps removed from the Diamonds themselves."

Pearl beamed with pride but Connie couldn't quash her internal skepticism. For one, she had gotten a very different vibe from Pearl during the handship fight, plus, well, a part of her was offended that Pearl wasn't secretly unhappy about being forced to serve _the enemy_.

Though another part of Connie reluctantly conceded that, of the two of them seated in the hallway, Homeworld being 'the enemy' had only ever been true for one of them.

"Is Rose a..." Words momentarily failed Connie. "Is she a _nice_ owner?" and her voice rose into an incredulous peep by the end.

Pearl blinked and, in a timid voice, answered, "Rose is very different sort of owner. Much more hands-on and... appreciative," and she then blushed a deep teal, a faint smile trying and failing to hide on her face for reasons Connie couldn't fathom. "She reminds me of you a little," said Pearl in a more wistful tone before she made a choking sound and sat ramrod straight, clearing her throat a few times and clutching her hands together. "By which I mean, of course, that she encourages me and seems to approve of some of the more esoteric skills I have developed," she clarified hastily.

Connie was missing something here. Maybe if she could talk with Lapis or Peridot she- Right. _That._

"Pearl?" Reluctance was thick in Connie's voice. "I- I stood up for you and Amethyst at the launch. I was willing to stand against the others because it was wrong what was happening to the two of you. And because it was wrong what had put the two of you in that position in the first place."

Sensing the serious shift in the conversation, Pearl was sitting attentively, sympathetic eyes trained on Connie. She gave a small nod but didn't add anything herself.

Squirming a little on her crate, Connie said slowly, "But this? I'm not on Rose's side. Or P-two- uh, or on the other Peridot's. I need to rescue my family and I need to get out of here, Pearl." She licked her lips and looked up at Pearl with a tense but hopeful expression. "Can you help me do that?"

Pearl sat there and fidgeted, shoulders back, chin raised, an alabaster statue labeled 'Civility and Servility'. Then she hung her head so low her chin touched her chest, eyes squeezed shut. Her lips moved.

Connie leaned forward. "Pardon?"

"I can't," said the gem, louder but far from loud.

Connie's stomach sank. She wanted to say she wasn't surprised but, honestly? She was. It hurt. Pearl was- They were- Mentally shaking her head, Connie wasn't sure what Pearl was to her or what she was to Pearl but it had emotional weight. Significance. What Pearl was doing just felt _wrong_. Connie's heart insisted as such, loudly and stubbornly, despite her head making excuses to the contrary.

Eyes on her feet, in a voice so soft it was almost beyond hearing, Pearl said, "Rose is a dedicated servant of the Diamonds but she has a great deal of autonomy in said service. She wants to speak with you and it is within her purview to see you emerge from this ordeal unharmed." Pearl's eyes rose as far as Connie's chin, voice growing stronger. "I've observed that she is very practically-minded; if you meet with her in good faith, it's possible this will not end poorly." Her gaze reached Connie's eyes for a moment before dropping back down to the floor. "It would be a... relief if Rose and you were able to reach an accord."

Connie fidgeted on her seat, wanting to say something but finding the words hard to wrangle into order. With a sigh she rose to her feet and said only, "I'll try."

Returning the crates back to her gemstone, Pearl walked somberly in front of her. "Please follow me."

In the cell diagonal to Connie's --one to the right and across the hall-- was a blue teardrop gemstone made to look greenish seen through the crackling yellow field. The other cells were empty. Reaching the T-intersection, Pearl led them left and Connie heard a noise somewhere in the distance to the right that her mind instantly flagged as 'Peridot.' A phrase? A sob? A snarl? She couldn't say for sure, but if there was any gem, _any person_ Connie would recognize instinctively, it'd be her.

They traveled down a long corridor, pink like everything else, lined with geometric patterns, with crystalline conduits running overhead. There was a faint 'drip drip' audible and Pearl and Connie both stepped around a pool of greenish liquid forming on the floor. A part of Connie hoped that was part of the damage they'd inflicted, a surge of vindication washing through her. Another part of her observed how a leaky pipe was pretty pathetic as vengeances went and Connie's shoulders slumped.

The corridor branched to the left into another row of ten yellow-sealed cells. Jasper and Bismuth's gemstones were still conspicuously absent so Connie was keeping a keen eye out when she froze in her tracks.

"Hey!" barked Amethyst, the squat, purple gem rushing to the yellow field keeping her in the cell closest to the hallway. "Pearl! Let me out of-" She was wearing a black and pink uniform with the same cracked pink diamond emblem in the chest as Pearl. She used her left hand to raise the sloppy mop of white hair covering her left eye so she could gawk at Connie in full, binocular vision. "Citrine! Tell Pearl to let me out of here! She listens to you!"

Pearl's face couldn't seem to decide on whether to wear embarrassment, frustration, or apologeticness and settled for an ensemble expression of all three. "Amethyst, I'm sorry, but you did nothing to give Rose confidence that you would follow the plan when-"

Amethyst made an exasperated noise that became a very _colorful_ string of French invectives before she said, "Screw Rose!" pounding the wall of the cell for emphasis. "I hate Rose! We were a pack and she stole you away! And then she made me leave my new pack at the Zoo, locked me in this cage, and beat up the Crystal Jerks without me!" Hair flopped back down, Amethyst's visible eye was pleading. "Come on, Pearl!"

Pearl made a perfunctory bow and said, "My apologies, Amethyst, but Rose said that until-"

A noise of frustration transformed into a roar of anger from the cell, cutting Pearl off. Amethyst shifted into a hulking form with gorilla-like with enormous forearms that reached all the way to the floor. So transformed, she slammed either wall, then reared back and punched the field only for there to be a loud _pop_ , a flash, and her arm was missing from mid-forearm up.

Connie's guide rushed over to crouch in front of the cell. "Oh! Amethyst, please! You'll hurt yourself doing that!"

Amethyst shrank back down to her normal form and collapsed in a corner, cradling her stump. She glared daggers through the barrier. "Like _you_ care. The only person on this ship who hasn't been a complete dink to me is Peridude."

Connie, feeling a little awkward, said in a high voice, "I tried to heal Biggs. I tried on her first, like I promised!"

Amethyst used the wall and her one intact hand to rise to her feet, looking past Pearl's thin form at Connie. "Biggs? You mean the alpha?! Is she better?! Did she say anything about me?! Are les autres better too?!"

Rubbing one arm, Connie said a little sheepishly, "Yeah, her, and no. She was better for a little while even if she still looked the same; she used letters to answer some questions but I didn't catch most of them since I was trying to clean up the corruption in her. And then she got worse again but she's not in a bubble anymore," Connie added hastily. "She's somewhere she can be safe and relaxed and at peace."

Amethyst looked like she was about to say something when a sob escaped her, apparently a surprise even to herself. She mopped at her hidden eye with her hair and nodded. "Good." She landed gracelessly on her duff and nodded again, a loud sniff escaping her. "Good," she repeated. "I'm glad you kept your promise." Then she glared at Pearl. "Unlike _someone."_

With a dejected sigh, Pearl rose primly and walked over to Connie. "This way, please. Rose is waiting."

Before Connie had moved, Amethyst shouted, "Hey, Citrine! Give Rose a good stab with that sword of yours. For moi."

"Amethyst!" squawked Pearl in sharp reproach.

Amethyst rolled her eye, blew a raspberry, and tried to make a rude, two-handed gesture. When she came up a hand short she made a noise of frustration and muttered something unflattering in French.

Connie allowed herself to be led away by Pearl, the two walking in silence while, in the distance, Amethyst shouted once or twice more and banged against the walls of her cell.

They walked by a window of some sort and Connie had to stop and gawk, the Earth visible below, a brilliant blue-and-green expanse suspended in black. It was night on the face of the planet and, after a moment staring, Connie recognized the Delmarva coastline based on the dots of light clustered along the coast, Empire City being a swath brighter than any other she could see. Connie was hardly a judge of such things but it didn't seem like they were that high above the planet; the sphere was bigger than the pictures she'd seen taken by Lapis and Peridot or anything out of NASA.

After a minute to stare, a gentle hand touched Connie's shoulder and the girl tore her eyes away from her world below.

They passed a number of corridors, one of which was sealed off with a shiny metal that stood out all the more for not being pink. Connie's grasp of gem writing was poor but Peridot had made sure she recognized the word for 'danger,' which was written across the front in large, green glyphs. Between that and the scorch marks she could make out in the surrounding pink, Connie guessed that led to one of the fingers that had lost phalanges in the approach to Beach City.

"-amaged so it'll be low-speed impulse engines until I'm able to effect repairs," said a voice down the hallway. It was stated matter-of-factly but with chipper undertones.

"Take us to a random point between three and ten hours away from Earth," said a rich, commanding voice. "Make it somewhere above or below the orbital plane."

"But there's nothing out there," objected a speaker Connie recognized as P2.

"Precisely," answered Rose, their voices emerging from an open door set in the right side of the far end of the hallway. "We don't know if there are additional Crystal Gems on this planet or if they have any other surprises in store. The Lunar Base could be an ambush waiting to happen, as could any other planet or asteroid. They had a Peridot and a Lapis Lazuli after all." There was a musical 'hmmm' followed by, "But it's very hard to trap a randomly chosen patch of hard vacuum."

"Oh, that's clever!" cheered P2 as Connie and Pearl approached quietly. There was a pause and then the omnipresent hum of the handship shifted slightly. "Course laid in. I'll prepare a schedule for making repairs, beginning with the gravity drive, of course."

"No. Our highest priority is repairing the Galaxy Warp so Novaculite can establish a secure warp connection," commanded Rose, her voice gentle but firm.

P2 made an incredulous noise and there was a metal-on-metal rasp that Connie recognized as floating finger-on-limb enhancer. "I recall the assurances you've made about these specialists, but my own certifications are more than adequate to seek out the Cluster and check-"

"Peridot," said Rose warmly but warningly. Then, in a much sweeter tone, she said "As I said before, this isn't a reflection of your abilities. I've seen your work and I know your Diamond chose well in selecting you for this very important mission."

This was met with a pleased noise. "Thank you! Besides, there was no mention in the original mission parameters that-"

Pearl stepped into view of the doorway and bowed, the conversation in the room lapsing. "Connie is here, my Rose." She stepped to the side of the entryway, hands clasped, every inch the flawless and efficient servant.

"As I was saying, the original mission parameters-" started P2 before she was silenced by Rose.

"We can discuss it later, Peridot. I want you to run an integrity check on the flask robonoids to ensure the Galaxy Warp can be repaired swiftly." Then, in a warmer voice, if no less commanding, she said, "Pearl? Please keep an eye on the bridge. Alert me if anything unexpected happens en route."

Pearl bowed low. "Yes, my Rose." With that she turned and walked down the hallway toward the large, double doors of pink at the end.

"And don't touch my controls!" P2 called after her, the technician stepping into view. She then turned, saw Connie, and her eyes lit up. "Oh! You're the abomination! It's so fascinating to see you up close." In a blur of activity that was very reminiscent of a field examination by Peridot, P2 stepped in close and thoroughly invaded Connie's personal bubble, prodding this and that all while making excited noises.

Connie stepped back and put a force field between them, hand rising to her gemstone for her sword.

With a word from Rose, P2 relented, stepped around the force field, and set off down the corridor, gravity connectors clanking with each step. Before disappearing around a corner, she turned and called back, "I hope you have a good interrogation!"

A glance from Connie showed that the very sturdy-looking doorway to the bridge was shut again, so storming it in a last-second surprise probably wouldn't work. Nothing was stopping her from running off but she was trapped on a spaceship in orbit around the Earth, so it's not like she could dive out a window and escape, and there had been a distinct lack of doors conspicuously labeled 'Escape Pods.' Besides, as surreal and latently terrifying as the entire situation was, _Rose Quartz_ was just inside that doorway wanting to talk to her and, honestly, a corner of Connie was brimming with questions of her own.

Drawing a deep breath, Connie squared her shoulders, stepped clear of her own force field, and walked into the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a note about Pearl's former master, one I can share now that she's at Rose's side: my co-creators and I have no intention of revealing who they were. In fact, we've deliberately never settled on a canon answer to that question.
> 
> Why? Well, CS!Pearl is having an arc all her own, an arc that's been slowly progressing since way back in Episode 1 when Connie first revealed that special book of hers. And the personal significance of that arc would only be complicated by having a name and rank for some original character Pearl served before the start of _Connie Swap_. All the details Pearl have given can be considered accurate (e.g. her previous owner was a White Court aristocrat with a fleet who was summoned to Earth to somehow help with the colonization effort) and, no, Pearl never served a Diamond in this AU.
> 
> So if that's always seemed a little odd to you, well, now you at least know it's deliberate. We wanted to keep the focus squarely on Pearl within her long-running subplot, only now widening the scope to include Rose in the mix as well.


	4. A Family Chat

The door slid shut automatically behind Connie. The room was large and spartan, with a desk, chairs, and table, all scaled to someone Rose’s size. A rack in the back held instruments that Connie felt nervous looking at. However, there was a large doorway in the back that was screened off by gauzy, rose-patterned curtains, warm light glowing within. Something about the style screamed 'Pearl' to Connie, maybe because it had an aesthetic to it reminiscent of some of the descriptions in her _The Tale of the Hero and the Companion_ book.

Standing beside a desk built to scale was a very pink, _very_ large woman, gemstone visible at her navel, a large sword held in her left hand and pointed at the floor.

With a warm smile Rose gestured for a chair set across from her, one that was practically bar stool-height for someone like Connie. "Please, have a seat."

Connie was maybe three cautious paces forward when the twinkle in Rose's eyes vanished and she said bitterly, "Hello, Citrine. You can drop the act."

Connie froze, stunned.

Rose leaned forward, scrutinizing Connie, her mouth curling into a faint frown. Then her eyes lit up, her entire face transforming into one of elation. "You're really not her, are you? Her gem but not her," she said softly, voice thick with wonder. "I just-" A tear rolled down one cheek. "I have a niece," she said, her voice thick with emotion. She rushed forward as if to give Connie a hug.

Connie yelped and put a vertical force field between them, already casting about for defensive locations and points of escape.

The pink Quartz stopped, then reached back and pulled out and unfolded what Connie now knew to be a destabilizer, her face becoming a rictus of rage. "You think I can be so easily fooled?!" With a prod, the force field dissolved and Rose took a single step forward, radiating a palpable aura of menace.

Hastily summoning her sword, Connie took a defensive stance and readied herself for combat, hair frizzing out as she channeled energy into the blade.

Rose switched off and put away the destabilizer, sword lowering. As though a mask had been removed, the outrage vanished, replaced with an expression of open curiosity. She stepped back calmly and sat back down, making a small gesture inviting Connie to do the same.

A full minute passed, Connie holding her sword and wondering _what the heck_ had just happened. Finally she just asked, "What the heck was that?" eyes trained on Rose for the first sign of danger.

Rose quirked her head to the side. "You're a hard one to read."

Connie's expression of confusion deepened into disbelief. Another minute passed and her arms were starting to ache from holding her sword ready, muscled coiled for action. Finally, slowly, never letting go of her sword, Connie scrabbled up to sit on the chair. "So people keep telling me," she answered a touch ruefully.

Another silence stretched out between them before Rose said, "I apologize for the facades, here and at the beach. I have to maintain certain appearances when others are watching and I wasn't really sure who you were."

"And you are now?" asked Connie, voice inflecting up. Then she mentally replayed Rose's words and she blurted out, "Wait?! You call the fight at the beach a _facade?!"_

Rose giggled, a sweet sound you'd expect to precede the phrase, 'Oh, aren't you precious. Have a cookie.' "Less sure who you are and more sure who you aren't. And, yes." She gave a happy sigh, eyes twinkling like they were sharing a joke. "There was a degree of catharsis to it, I'll admit, but I never wanted to hurt you or the others." She took a deep breath, her expression sobering. "However, there are only three Rose Quartzes that survived Earth intact and unbubbled: one that only weeps, one who never speaks above a whisper, and one who wields a terrible pink sword without a sheath. I'm the fearsome Rose Quartz, right hand of the Diamonds, shatterer of dissent. Everyone-"

She paused and the gemstone at her navel flared with light, the door behind them clicking as if sealed. She waited a beat and then continued. "Everyone knows this and my position depends on it staying this way so there's an element of theater when I'm in front of a Peridot who answers to Yellow Diamond."

Connie twisted the sword around so that it was draped across her lap, the girl feeling ever more unmoored, like she'd stepped through the looking glass or snuck behind a curtain and found everyone rehearsing their lines for the next scene of her life. "Do you..." She trailed off, Connie HQ being in disarray at that moment. "Are you wanting to escape to Earth?"

Her mom had written how guilty she'd felt for what she considered unwittingly trapping Rose in Homeworld's clutches. She'd pleaded for Connie to help Rose if the situation arose. Was this that situation?

Rose smiled but it was laced with sadness. "The Earth I could escape to is thousands of years in the past. If I wanted to I could bubble Peridot, commit some convincing act of sabotage, and land us all on Earth before the ship self-destructed." Her eyes dropped to the floor. She shook her head, a thick canopy of curls swaying with the motion. "But it would do no good. Homeworld will come back again and again, as many times as it takes." Her eyes rose to meet Connie's. "They'll come unless I complete my mission and tell them there's nothing more of interest on Earth."

Connie blinked. This was going _nothing_ like she'd been expecting it to. Was this- Should she- Connie really wished there was lemonade in space.

As if sensing something, Rose slumped back and waved off whatever Connie was about to say. "I'm sorry. Here you are and I'm talking about that. My interrogations have been known to take a while but there are limits so we only have so much time."

"Time?" asked Connie.

Despite the sword never leaving her hand, Rose shifted forward in her seat, looking intently at Connie. "Time for questions. Connie... What can you tell me about my sister?"

Connie swooned a little at a question that she'd been asking for fourteen years and counting. She tried to swallow and realized she was actually pretty thirsty, yet another reason to lament the shortage of space lemonade.

Then that persistent voice in Connie's head, the one that had been pointing out that she was _captured,_ that her family had been savaged, poofed, or both before her very eyes only one concussion ago, that there had been threats of shattering and bombarding Beach City, that _she was dealing with Homeworld._ That voice said that maybe she shouldn't forget all of that just because someone started acting inexplicably _nice._

"So, please don't take this the wrong way but, how do I know you're for real?" asked Connie, hand tightening imperceptibly around her sword. "I mean, you violently stabbed most of my family not that long ago and you hit me in the face really hard. Are you going to let us go? Can I get some assurances of that, like you bringing the others here? Or, maybe you could 'interrogate' me on Earth and then the Crystal Gems and I 'escape.' Pearl's really good with holograms and theatrics; if she could make a rocket out of scraps she could probably build something that could fool that Peridot so that your reputation remains intact."

The silence stretched out between them an uncomfortably long time.

"If I asked you to trust me, if I swore on my love for Citrine, would that suffice?" asked Rose in her musical but somber voice.

Connie looked around the room once more, as much to give her time to think as to make absolutely sure this wasn't somehow the most elaborate prank in the history of the universe. _"No-ooo~"_ answered the girl hesitantly, her voice rising up to near a squeak.

Then, a beat later Connie remembered something she'd learned not too long ago, a way she _could_ tell if someone was lying. It wasn't perfect but it'd give her something to go on other than Rose's assurances. After all, Rose was either a tragic innocent maintaining a millennia-long facade while trapped in Homeworld's clutches or a terrifyingly competent agent of the Diamonds' trying to bluff past Connie's defenses: she was an accomplished con artist either way.

"Actually, if you'll let me look at your mindscape, I'd be able to know that-"

A large hand that could likely pulverize stone came down _hard_ on the table beside Rose, the noise causing Connie to jolt in her seat. "No!" roared the large Quartz. "You are obviously not Citrine because she would know better than to ask such a thing!"

Eventually the blood stopped thrumming in Connie's ears and her eyebrows stopped trying to climb up off her forehead and escape. Around that time Rose looked down to see the inch-deep indentation she'd left in the solid metal table and she leaned back, eyes staring levelly at Connie.

"I wanted to have a daughter once," the Quartz said, apropos of nothing.

Connie's mouth moved but no noises emerged, words being beyond her at the moment.

"I spoke of it to Citrine once," Rose continued. "A gem bearing a human: what an experience that would be. And who would that human become? Would it even be possible for the gem to give herself up in the process, to become _part_ of her daughter, to make some _one_ and some _thing_ entirely new?"

Rose shed a single tear, caught it on her index finger, and dropped it on the table. It sparkled for a second and then, with an audible 'pop', the dent was gone, the surface pristine once more. The pink gem looked suddenly wistful. "I was going to name her Nora."

Connie pulled a face then immediately tried to un-pull it.

Rose gave a low chuckle. "Yes, Citrine didn't care for the name either, as I recall." She leaned forward. "But clearly she liked the idea enough to have you. To _be_ you."

She shook her head, a rueful expression rising to her face. "Citrine took everything from me, Connie. My rebellion. My dream. My future. Even this, even Nora."

"You..." Connie paused, trying and failing to think of a tactful way to phrase the following. When she came up blank, she just gave an inward shrug of helplessness and said, "Uh, you could still have a daughter if you wanted to. I'm not sure with who, exactly, but there's a lot of men on-" and then that really was too much for Connie and she went quiet in a hurry.

"My point," answered Rose a beat later, "is that my little sister did so much in my name that there was very little left of me for me."

Connie's brow furrowed and a corner of her was briefly grateful that that no longer made the right side of her face explode with pain. "I don't think she had me because of anything to do with you. I think she was... tired. Or she thought she'd gotten trapped in a rut and that I might be able to do things differently, maybe even better. Honestly, probably both of those things," said Connie quietly, a lump rising in her throat as the subject hit home. "Regardless, she did it for herself or, darn, this is hard to say right.” She took a steadying breath and tried to order her words. “I think she did it for her own reasons. It shouldn't reflect on you."

"And you know this from her memories?" asked Rose gently.

Connie shook her head. "No. She's gone. Believe me, I looked. I think I would be way less clueless if I had Mom's memories or voice guiding me, even if it was only on a subconscious level. I mean, it'd be all kinds of creepy and troublesome, but it'd have made some things have gone a lot smoother. My whole life has been a _lot_ of everyone trying to make it up as they go along: me; Peridot; Dad; Lapis and Jasper." She ended by offering Rose a helpless shrug.

"She must have left you some guidance," insisted Rose. "Holographic messages. Instructions to Jasper. Citrine was many things and unprepared wasn't one of them. I used to tease her about trying to run a rebellion by checklist," and she ended with a brief chuckle.

Connie wasn't sure if she should laugh too or offer a defense of the practicality of checklists, a voice very much like Peridot's in her head leaping loudly to their defense.

Instead, though, she said, "No. She wrote a journal that I would only be able to discover if I had some of her powers. She really wanted me to find my own way, so I guess you're right because the lack of guidance _was_ deliberate. The journal," she sighed and channeled more energy into her sword to keep her hair from frizzing overmuch. "The journal was about you, actually. How much she regretted what happened to you."

The silence waxed long enough that Connie looked up from where she'd been staring at the tear-fixed table --a corner of her mind wondering why P2 hadn't just walked around with a squirt gun of Rose tears and fixed the ship in the space of thirty minutes-- to see a stricken Rose looking back at her.

"What were these regrets?" asked the pink gem after a pregnant pause.

Connie squeezed and relaxed her grip on her sword a few times trying to order her thoughts. "She blamed herself for you splitting the Rebellion. She blamed herself thinking you were captured by Homeworld. She was mixed on how the war ended: glad she was able to conclude it with the Earth safe and free but wondering if she could have done something differently so it didn't end with the Diamonds corrupting all the gems on the planet." She thought for a moment and shrugged. "There were some other, personal regrets, but not things directly about you or the war."

Connie fidgeted uncertainly, squeezing the grip of her sword one last time before adding, "She called you her soulmate and, whatever the hard feelings and ugly history between the two of you, she loved you. That was- She wrote that journal not long before she had me so, you know, she felt that way up to the end."

Rose got very still. _Very_ still: a fluffy, pink-haired sculpture. Gems didn't need to breathe or even blink so they could go very statue-like. Then Connie heard a noise of metal fatigue and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from the grip on _Rose's sword_ ; the large Quartz' left hand was white-knuckled and trembling.

For a moment, just the span of time between eye blinks, Rose's composure fled and she looked... _ANGRY._ But on the other side of the eye blink the mask was back in place and Rose was neither wrathful or statuesque. Instead, the fluffy pink woman heaved a sigh and said in a melancholy but musical voice, "Did she regret shattering Pink Diamond?"

Connie's gaze lingered on the grip of Rose's sword for a second longer before saying, "No. She described it as horrific and traumatizing, and she regretted the wedge it drove between the two of you, but she never regretted the act itself. She, um, she lamented the necessity of it, but she didn't question it," elaborated the girl.

Meanwhile, a corner of Connie was trying and failing to get her attention.

Rose shook her head ruefully. Then, with wide, beseeching eyes, she asked Connie, "Was she at least respectful of our Diamond's shards?"

 _Huh?_ and Rose's beseeching gaze was met with Connie's bewildered one. "She didn't- Pink Diamond's shards? I don't know anything about them. Doesn't Homeworld have them?"

That corner of Connie was all the louder but it couldn't quite cut through the clamor and general confusion in Connie HQ.

There was a flash of light over the doorway Connie had entered through. She wasn't sure what it meant, but it reminded her of the light that flickered in Steven's room when the doorbell rang. Maybe someone was requesting entry?

Ignoring the light, Rose gave a weary but commiserating smile, the sort two friends might give one another at the end of a long day. "It's okay, Connie. My sister, your mother, knew all too well the pressures of leadership. It's isolating. In each other we found comfort and shared understanding, even if just to gripe about the latest batch of recruits. It was probably the thing that I was most surprised to miss about her after the Rebellion split. So, on behalf of a regret of my own, let me say that the secrets of leadership need not be secrets between us."

Finding herself deeply confused, Connie made a brief inventory of herself and finally noticed the flag that prudent corner of herself had been frantically raising. How had she ended up talking to Rose about all this stuff? She still wasn't sure she trusted Rose. No, she was _certain_ she didn't trust Rose, she just couldn't figure out how much of that mistrust was deserved. But right now the answer coming back was, 'All of it.'

The light above the door flashed once more, neither Rose or Connie responding to it.

Nibbling her lower lip in thought, Connie emerged from her own head and gave a tentative nod. "Okay," she said a touch hesitantly. "I think you're right. It _is_ lonely and, well, I call Lapis and Jasper my aunts sometimes but that's actually true for you, or at least as true as it can be for gems. So, what is it you're doing on Earth?"

Rose blinked, her smile remaining studiously natural. "Pardon?"

"You said that you couldn't run away because Homeworld would keep coming back again and again until you or someone else completed your mission, but you never actually said what that mission was," pressed Connie, trying to look casual and fearing she was doing horribly at it. She was certainly a better liar than Steven, but there was a world of difference between keeping a straight face while telling Peridot she had no idea what'd happened to her bag of Sour Patch Kids and trying to fast talk an immortal super-general-turned-inquisitor.

"Maybe I can help you wrap it up faster so my family and I can return home sooner," she added, instantly regretting having said it and awarding herself the prize of _Least Convincing Actress, Ever._

Rose gave her an... appraising look. "Yes, that would be nice. But I'm afraid it's one thing to commiserate over things that happened on Earth thousands of years ago and another to discuss the details of an active mission." A pause. "As I'm sure you understand."

"Does it have to do with the Cluster?" asked Connie, doing the rhetorical-equivalent of throwing the contents of her pockets at the enemy and hoping they choked on a nickel.

"The Cluster?" answered Rose smoothly.

"Peridot- Your Peridot," Connie clarified, "mentioned the Cluster as Pearl and I were approaching."

Rose's mask was impressively tenacious. "Yes, I suppose she did, didn't she?"

The door flashed a third time.

Connie shrugged, doing her best to feign nonchalance and really hoping the sweat hadn't soaked through her clothes enough to be visible. "We have a Peridot too. The Cluster; is this related to that?"

Rose cleared her throat and a corner of Connie was wondering if the metaphorical nickel had found a windpipe. "It's..." A pause. "It's complicated and I'm sworn to secrecy by the Diamond who authorized this mission." She gave Connie a _really convincing_ and apologetic smile then said, "I'm-"

The rest of her sentence was obviously 'sorry' but Connie didn't hear it because she'd gone insubstantial, her sword dropping from her grip and dissolving. As on the beach, a bubble reflexively engulfed Rose, shoving table and chair aside in the act of forming. The gem's mindscape was visible behind a metaphysical barrier of pink, visible but untouchable.

Rose was lying. Massively. Pervasively. Fifty-foot-tall-letters-spelled-in-white-fire-against-a-clear-sky obviously. The only unknown was whether this meant Rose was lying about being sworn to secrecy, about the entire concept they were discussing, or if this meant Rose was lying about just plain everything.

Connie really needed to get a better grasp of this facet of this power.

Also, the fear Connie had seen on the beach was still there. Diminished some but the emotion was so deeply enmeshed in the pattern as to be nearly fundamental to the fractal itself.

In the real world Rose was baring her teeth like an animal about to lunge for the throat; Connie could see in her peculiar double-vision that the rage was authentic and not just another mask. However, there was something of a standoff between them because Connie couldn't touch anything or leave --not unless there was a really convenient open door through what looked to be Rose's bedroom-- and Rose couldn't drop her bubble unless she was willing to allow Connie to do more than look at her mindscape.

The stalemate was ended when the light flashed a fourth time, the door opened, and P2 walked through holding a cracked flask robonoid and waving her limb enhancers around.

Connie willed a trio of force fields between herself and Rose, raised her arms in a gesture of surrender, and marched out of the room. By the time the sounds and sensations of the world came roaring back, she was being marched at blaster-point back to her cell while Rose followed at a distance just outside Connie's Colored Perception range, the gem’s expression a grim thundercloud of fury framed in curls of pink.

"A point of curiosity," asked P2 as she disabled the yellow field and opened the barred door to Connie's cell. "Has the destabilizer field been effective at keeping you contained? Rose Quartz insisted on additional precautionary measures, hence the crude, physical impediments, and I was wondering if her suggestion has proven meritorious?"

Connie walked into the cell and said in an uncertain voice, "Um, I'm not sure. I don't normally poke strange energy fields."

The door swung shut, the yellow field crackling into being and the door locking with a clunk. P2 nodded thoughtfully on the other side. "A pity. Well, if you change your mind, please remember to rate your level of pain and/or dismemberment on a ten-point scale. I'll be by to ask you later."

The throat of a certain pink gem cleared at the far end of the hall.

"Much later," amended P2, who then turned to leave.

Some time later, maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour, Pearl came by. She looked distraught.

"Hello Connie," said the gem meekly.

Connie had been sitting in the corner of the cell mulling over the fact that, whatever snare she'd avoided in her talk with Rose, she was still undeniably trapped. In space. Without food or water. With one gem who affably spoke of dismemberment and another who... And another who was Rose Quartz.

Connie had _no idea_ how to characterize Rose Quartz right now.

And then there was Pearl. "Hello Pearl," answered Connie. Her voice was subdued, made heavy with the heavy thoughts occupying her just then, but she couldn't keep out a rising inflection of warmth. She _was_ glad to see Pearl.

Pearl's gemstone flared with light twice and then a pair of holo-pearls were standing beside her. In their high-pitched monotone the pair droned, "Maximum. Security. Usher mode. Engaged."

The pale gem gave a small sigh, then withdrew a device from her gemstone, handing it to one holo-pearl. The other she positioned in front of the control panel and said, "Admission for one," a touch wearily.

The holo-pearl said, "Raising. Curtains," and worked the controls. The yellow field shut off, the barred door swung open a crack, and Pearl stepped gingerly through, shutting the door behind her. "Lowering. Curtains," and the sequence was reversed, Pearl now locked in with Connie.

"What's going on, Pearl?" asked Connie, rising to her feet.

"When I learned that you might be in your cell for the foreseeable future, I pointed out that you'd need sustenance." The gem stood a few paces back, hands clasped in front of her, shoulders straight but her chin lowered.

"You have water?! And food?!" Connie hadn't meant to sound so desperate but her body had overruled all decorum.

A faint smile crossed Pearl's face. "I stockpiled some in anticipation of Amethyst's and my departure from Earth, in case you had... elected to accompany us."

Connie met Pearl's expression with one to match. "Well, I'm in space with both of you now," said the girl with more sincerity and less snark than she'd expected.

"You certainly are," and for a second Pearl and Connie only beamed at each other.

The destabilizer gave a particularly loud crackle just then and the pleasant bubble burst. With cheer that rang slightly false, Pearl reached for her gemstone and said, "Let's see what some of your choices are, shall we?"

First was the crate labeled 'Milk' that Connie had used for a seat earlier. Connie's stomach rumbled in anticipation as Pearl retrieved something from her gemstone to pry it open. Inside was a neat stack of thirty-two-ounce cartons of skim milk.

 _Oh, neat. Pearl's gemstone must keep stuff in stasis or something._ Connie picked up a carton and fiddled with the cap, thirsty and empty in equal measure.

The second the cap was loosed there was a 'whoosh' as pressurized gasses escaped and Connie clapped her free hand over her nose while she held the carton out as far from her as she could. Then she gagged and the smell got in her mouth and she could _taste_ it and that was entirely too much and fortunately Pearl managed to take the milk out of her hand before she dropped it going insubstantial. Suddenly see-through, Connie was mercifully rendered bereft of both taste and smell.

Pearl resealed the carton, put everything away, then retrieved what looked like a homemade jar of potpourri, the gem waving it around the cell like a priest attempting an exorcism.

Connie returned to tangibility and was met with a cloying mix of dried flowers, spices, and curdled miasma. Fortunately that last odor was faint and the air was once more breathable.

Pearl bowed low several times while deeply flustered, finally managing to say, "Apologies, dear Connie. Amethyst assured me that milk was far more palatable stored room temperature and aged. In retrospect, I should have confirmed that her preference was true for humans as well." She put away the potpourri and said in a horrified whisper, "I am suddenly very grateful Amethyst didn't request any milk in transit to Homeworld space."

It took another couple minutes for Pearl to apologize enough before she was willing to make another attempt, this time bringing out the crate labeled 'Beans' that Pearl had sat on earlier. Again came an optimistic rumble from Connie's stomach. Once the lid came off Connie was met not with the sight of stacked cans but rather five cubic feet of loose, dry pinto beans.

Pearl noticed Connie's crestfallen expression. "Is something the matter? I was quite certain beans were a staple foodstuff for humanity."

The girl shook her head. "No, they are, but I can't eat these raw. They're hard as a rock. They need to be cooked first."

Flustered, Pearl said, "I- Well, I'm sure I could-" She paused. "How does one cook beans? What temperature are you supposed to preheat the oven to?"

Thinking back to the morning of the launch, Connie remembered that Pearl had nearly brewed her tea made from oak leaves.

"Peridot will know. Oh, uh, the Crystal Gem Peridot." A thought crossed Connie's mind and made the girl blanch. "Please don't let the other Peridot do any of the cooking."

With swift efficiency Pearl put away the box of raw beans and summoned a bulk box containing twenty-four snack-sized bags of nacho cheese-flavored Chaaaps. With equal parts caution and hope, Connie opened a bag, took a bite, and declared them edible! They were terminally stale but she was more than willing to overlook that particular flaw just then.

Uplifted, Pearl then retrieved two thirty-two packs of bottled water which she stacked neatly in one corner for Connie. These contained the modest, sixteen-point-nine ounce bottles that could fit in a cup holder, but with more than sixty of them, that would keep Connie hydrated for a good while.

Pearl excused herself soon after, one holo-pearl letting her back out with a command and the other, holding what Connie assumed was an alarm, handing the device over. Both constructs were unsummoned, Pearl bid Connie farewell, and then disappeared out of sight.

A little later Connie was partway through with her second bag of Chaaaps and was cautiously poking the crackling yellow field to her cell with assorted objects. It had chewed right through her sword and seemed unphased by any electricity she fired at it. Force fields appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye if they intersected the barrier, though she could summon them just fine out in the hallway if, for some reason, she wanted to. The Chaaaps wrapper went through without issue, as did the chips themselves, water droplets, and an empty water bottle. 

She'd plucked a hair from her head and it seemed unharmed where it intersected the field but she was still wary of outright poking it with her finger.

Instead, after her first bag of Chaaaps, Connie had sat beside the entrance and given herself the mother of all frizzled hairdos while dumping who knew how much electrical current into the surrounding electronics. Nothing had shorted out, the lighting never wavered, and after her clothes had attained epic levels of static cling she'd reluctantly conceded that the alien warship was better able to handle power surges than the Beach House.

If she were insubstantial she'd feel comfortable poking the field. Heck, if her insubstantial self was immune to the field then she'd be able to walk right out, the two-inch gap in the bars being more than wide enough for her see-through form to squeeze through. Of course, her gemstone became soft light while she was insubstantial, so even if her ghostly form could pass through fine, the thought of her gemstone suffering a fate similar to Amethyst's missing forearm gave her a gut full of doubt.

If it turned out she was overthinking this whole thing she was going to feel _so_ dumb... Not that she could turn insubstantial in a hallway by herself anyway.

While Connie was finishing off her second bag of Chaaaps and mulling over her options she noticed a strong glow coming from the cell diagonal to her. _Wait, isn't that the cell with-_

The glow intensified then abruptly ended with a flash of movement and green. No, not green: blue behind a yellow field.

"Kiss my blue ass, Rose!" roared a familiar voice, her defiance echoing off the pink walls of the handship interior.

Then, before Connie had managed to swallow her Chaaaps and rise to her feet, she heard, "Oh, darn. That'd have been a lot cooler if someone were actually here."

"Lapis!" cried Connie, standing as close to the door to her cell as she could.

"Wha- Connie?!" Lapis appeared at the edge of her cell and- Wow. Lapis had poofed and reformed a few times in Connie's life, being both the most reckless and least durable of her magical caregivers, but all had been slight variations on the same basic look. This... This was something else entirely. It was bold. Defiant. Plus, that was the first time she'd seen Lapis openly wearing a star.

But what Connie said was, "Your arms?!" Where Jasper's corruption marks had been circular blotches, Lapis' were jagged and a deeper shade of blue-green.

Lapis started to raise her hands to her arms when she paused, then let them drop to her side, the gem drawing back her shoulders and puffing her chest out instead. "Welcome to the gun show, Con-con; I’m giving out season passes," said the gem cheekily, flexing one bicep for Connie's benefit.

Then the gem’s expression grew angier, more determined. "After Miss 'Petty in Pink' put me in time-out I had a while to do some thinking and I realized: jank that bee with an itch. She never survived the Corruption attack. She didn't know me or what I've been through since she flounced off-planet. She didn't know about the lessons you or Dot or OJ or Citrine have knocked through my thick skull since the Rebellion. I am powerful! I am important! I'm more Crystal Gem than she's ever been and I have the marks to prove it!"

Connie started applauding. She couldn’t help herself, it was just too inspiring. It also sounded reminiscent of something Bismuth had said once, though Connie had enough tact not to point that out.

Lapis grinned widely, offering a small bow, though making sure to stay well clear of the destabilizer field securing her cell. Then she looked around like a hound trying to catch a scent. "We're in space, aren't we?"

Connie nodded and then gave Lapis an abbreviated recap of the rest of the beach battle, adding in her own time since waking up aboard the handship. Finally she asked, "How can you tell we're in space?"

"There's practically no water. A tiny bit of the stuff on the ship, probably leaked in when the ship was damaged, there's a pile of the stuff in your cell, and lastly there's the stuff in your cells, you squishy gem-human combo, you." There was a look of concentration on her face followed by, "And I can't affect any of it."

"Do you think it's that Moissanite field of theirs?" asked Connie, the earlier thrill giving way as the (im)practicalities of being imprisoned reasserted themselves.

Lapis shrugged. "I don't think so but I'm not sure. It feels different. If I had to guess, I'd say these destabilizer fields are keeping me from reaching out to get my splash on."

Connie jolted, a surge of hope and excitement hitting her system. "I can roll you one of my bottles of water!" exclaimed the girl. "I mean, if you think you can use that to get out of your cell."

Lapis winked. "You remember that X-Men movie from a ways back where Magneto escapes from a plastic prison with a couple metal marbles?"

The teenager could only shrug. She vaguely remembered some excited ramble Steven had delivered that mentioned something like that, but that was back in January or February when Hiddenite's debut had still been fresh in their minds. "I'm fourteen, Lapis."

The blue gem huffed and shook her head. "Ugh, fine. My point is, get me a bottle or two and watch me work."

As thrilling as all that was, the reality of getting Lapis a bottle of water proved to be a slow and embarrassing trial-and-error ordeal, because real life had no sense of dramatic tension. The bottles had to squeeze through the bars, the plastic sides crinkling as Connie pushed them carefully through. With Lapis' cell being diagonal to Connie's, it meant banking a water bottle that way was difficult edging into impossible. She tried using force fields to ricochet the bottles off of or to roll the bottles down in some elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, all to no avail.

It wasn't until Connie accidentally touched the field with her hand trying to launch a bottle that she struck on a solution. The field didn't hurt so much as intensely tickle her, leaving her with a jittery, pins-and-needles sensation afterwards that wasn't comfortable but was a far cry from losing a limb. Nudging a bottle through field and bars, Connie reached past to grab the drink, did her best to ignore a profoundly _weird_ sensation, and with a flick of her wrist sent the bottle careening across the pink floor and into Lapis' cell.

She passed along two more for good measure then stopped when she heard metal groaning. Loudly.

In the cell directly across from Connie, the wall separating that cell from Lapis' bulged inward. There was a 'wham' and another long, loud groan and the bulge expanded, the metal straining and deforming under the hydrokinetic onslaught. Finally a blur rocketed across the empty cell, a water blob hitting the opposite wall and splashing messily. As if an invisible hand were gathering it up, the blob reformed and started to hammer into the wall from Connie's side while simultaneously a blob on Lapis' side did the same like a pair of dueling jackhammers.

_Wham!Wham!Wham!Wham!Wham!_

Connie spent a minute with her hands clapped over her ears, then added a double layer of force fields between her and the demolition when a metal fragment flew off and ricocheted around her cell. Finally the wall had been Swiss cheese'd enough for Lapis to step between them freely, though the destabilizer fields still remained over the entrance to each cell.

Water oozed up the pillar of jagged metal that marked where one cell's destabilizer field ended and another began, the remnant of the wall that must have contained whatever technology sustained the yellow fields. Then the water _flexed_.

Connie let her hands drop from her ears and she heard two sounds. The first was a low, metallic groan that reminded her of an old submarine movie; it'd been the noise the sub's hull made shortly before rupturing. The second was Lapis, eyes reflective as mirrors, cackling wildly.

Connie added a third force field to her bunker.

With a final, rising groan there was a _SNAP_ and the top of the jagged metal pillar was wrenched from the ceiling. Bent a full thirty degrees outward, there was a cascade of angry sparks from the pillar and then the crackling fields winked out.

Lapis was free.

The two dozen water bottles littering the hallway were swept up in her power, each popping loudly as the water exploded outward, rising up into an ever-growing watery blob.

"Hey Con-con? Where does the bad-ass blue waterbender go when she's angry?"

Connie, meanwhile, had ducked into the far corner of her cell and added a fourth and fifth layer to her bunker. Neither able or willing to fight down her grin, the girl screamed back, "Wherever she wants!" before burying her head in her arms and bracing for impact.

There was a sound like a train wreck crossed with massive wave crashing, a huge shudder, a splash, and then the squeal of metal-on-metal as every ounce of water on Connie was whisked away. When the girl opened her eyes she saw three of her force fields missing as well as the entire front of her cell (plus a quarter of each of the adjacent walls). A watery hand was dismissively chucking a pile of twisted metal into an unoccupied cell.

"Darn right!" answered Lapis, casually crossing her bare arms under the star emblazoned on her chest. "Now come on. We're breaking the others outta here and breaking Rose's face." She turned and started striding down the corridor, her water hand floating close behind, adding without looking back, "Though not necessarily in that order."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The model for Lapis was drawn by MjStudioArts.
> 
> Tune in next Wednesday, June 19th, for a _very_ exciting installment of _The Return!_
> 
> Waaay back when, Mj, BurdenKing, and I were talking about our hypothetical Return episode and how Lapis was going to be poofed and reform. And we pondered how Lapis would look afterwards. Would she be about the same? Would her new look be meek or bold? The result of that discussion from [looks at notes] March 2017 was the following designs by MJ:  
>   
> The rightmost one was what we ended up going with, or rather it was the inspiration for the awesome look we see for Lapis in this chapter. Here's it again for comparison:  
> 
> 
> Also, Rose mentioned in her talk with Connie that there are three Rose Quartzes out there still: one who cries, one who whispers, and her. Another old set of designs MJ did were the following, including an older Homeworld look for the Rose Quartz we know and ~~love~~ probably have strong opinions about one way or another:  
>   
> One of those might look unexpectedly familiar, in fact.
> 
> And finally, just for the heck of it, MJ did this sweet doodle of Crying Rose meeting Connie. Crying and Whisper both miss the Citrines they were made for and it's clearly an emotional experience for Crying Rose to see one, unshattered and unbubbled, even if that Citrine isn't hers:  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	5. Jail Break

Lapis, newly reformed, newly freed, bare-armed and dangerous, strode boldly forward, a water hand the size of a washing machine floating after her.

She reached the T-intersection at the end of the hallway and stopped, long hair swaying first left and then right as her head turned. "I say we go... LEFT!" and the blue gem made good her statement.

Connie, also freed from her cell, reached the intersection and called after Lapis, "Amethyst is that way but I heard Peridot earlier somewhere down the right branch."

"RIGHT!" boomed Lapis, turning on her heel and marching the other direction. Her water fist parted down the middle, each half dampening an adjacent wall, then melded back together and hovered back into position after she'd strode past.

She shot Connie a wink as she marched by.

 _I'm glad some things didn't change,_ observed Connie, jogging a little to catch up. _Though it's weird seeing her without pigtails._

"Do you think someone heard our escape?" asked Connie, keeping a keen eye out for movement.

"Probably," answered Lapis breezily. "We were really loud."

Connie's head continued to move like it was on a swivel, the girl trying keep all approaches watched. "And, I mean, wouldn't there be some sort of alarm when several holding cell walls get ripped out?"

"You'd assume so." Lapis slowed briefly at another intersection, glancing back and then striding forward in the direction Connie pointed. "The control room is probably strobing like a disco right now."

"You know what that-" They crossed a four-way intersection, Connie mentally readying herself to seal off one or more hallways with force fields if they were attacked. One pink hallway was empty while the other ended early in metal barrier labeled 'danger' in gem script. "You know what that means, right?" finished the girl as they walked on.

"That they'll be coming for us soon if they aren't already," answered Lapis casually.

Connie reached up and summoned her sword, a frown briefly crossing her face as she found the emotional trigger to do so. "Just making sure."

The pair had just reached another intersection in the pink-shaded labyrinth when they heard a moan that pitched up into a nasally sob.

"Dot?" exclaimed Lapis, gem and floating hand soaring ahead, Connie running to keep pace.

A sniff. "Lapis?"

The hydrokinetic beat her wings once to stop midair in front of a cell. "Dot!"

"Lapis!" A beat and then, in a stunned voice, "Wow."

Lapis fluttered her eyelashes and twisted left and right, posing. "You like it?" she asked, twirling some of her longer hair through blue fingers.

"Escape first. Flirt later," drawled Connie, turning to watch their rear and hoping Peridot wasn't doing the same for Lapis.

"Connie! You're intact! I- Gah!"

There was a splash and the loud rending of metal, several bangs, and then a flash and shower of sparks.

Peridot bounded out of her ruined cell and ran over to Connie. Connie, mindful of her sword, turned to receive her green guardian's hug, a smile rising to her face.

When short arms squeezed her around the stomach it was only the mop of spongy yellow hair that covered the look of profound surprise and unease on the girl's face. _This- This is going to take some getting used to,_ thought a corner of Connie as a quiet constant of her life was upended.

As if sensing the girl's thoughts, Peridot withdrew, head drooping and seemingly unable to figure out where to put her _(small, stubby)_ hands. "This- I'm sure you find my reduced form- I..." She hugged herself as if cold and sighed. "Well, I'm unable to know via objective measurement anymore but-" Her voice hitched. "-But I'm _so glad to see you unharmed!"_

Another short hug, this time with Peridot sobbing into Connie's chest. Connie blinked back tears of her own and, after a few exploratory pats to get used to the new hug landscape, began stroking Peridot's hair and making soothing noises.

"Guests. Sighted," said a high monotone at the end of the hall.

Connie and Peridot separated and Connie tried to catch the holo-pearl with an arc of electricity but the translucent construct had already disappeared around the corner.

Lapis flitted past, her water hand shooting forward like a cannonball. There was a splash and a crash. "Got it!" thrilled the blue gem.

"Gues- // Guests. Si- // ests. Sight- // -ighted," said a distant, monotone chorus.

"Jank! How many of those things are on this bucket?" exclaimed Lapis, starting to chase after one fleeing holo-pearl before thinking better of it and returning to Connie and Peridot's side, her water hand right behind her.

"Pearl will know where we are soon and I doubt Rose will be far away," said Connie in a tight voice.

Lapis shook her head. "Close but no cigar, girlie. She'll know where _I_ am soon," the gem emphasizing the 'I'. "You and Dot go find Jasper and Bismuth. Get in an escape pod or something while I'll keep Rose good and occupied." She shrugged and winked, adding, "I can pull a Kool-Aid man when you’re gone and meet you gals at home."

"But- Lapis, she'll provoke you and-" Peridot started to object.

"Not again, Dot." She caressed the short gem's cheek and then said. "Promise."

Peridot smiled briefly and then her expression immediately crashed into despair. "But without my enhancers, I'm worthless. Rose didn't need to poof me for precisely that reason. I can neither defend Connie or interface with the surrounding technological subsystems. I don't even have access to my records!" she wailed.

Connie stepped over. Then, a beat later, she knelt down, trying to catch Peridot's eye. "Do you know where the others are, ma'am?"

Peridot managed to nod despite the sobbing. "In- In the high-threat cells in the adjoining sector."

"Do these cells have bars on them or just the yellow fields?" pressed Connie.

The green gem blinked. "Bars? As in material restraints?" Sniff. "No. If a gem like Jasper or Bismuth somehow managed to reform in their cell, physical obstacles would, at best, only slow them down."

Connie nodded. "Then it'll be okay, ma'am. I can rescue them, just lead the way." Channeling a little extra energy into her sword she added, "And I'll keep us safe," silently hoping _really hard_ that it was a promise she could deliver.

"Great! Go be awesome, you two, and don't eat all the victory donuts before I-" said Lapis as she started to stride away from them, but she was interrupted by Peridot.

"Wait! There is one matter! That panel there," and she pointed to a section of pink wall not that different from any other. "I witnessed the enemy Peridot stow everyone's confiscated belongings there."

"Oh, is that a quarantine?" asked Connie. "Or a vault?"

The diminished figure beside her wiped her cheeks and shook her head. "No. In a few more hours the ship should automatically recycle or jettison the contents in all such panels across all decks."

"Quarantine? Garbage chute? As far as I'm concerned, it's a pink piñata," boasted Lapis. There was a crash and a rending sound followed by Connie's missing belongings flying across the corridor... along with several chunks of the wall and the tubes and wiring behind that.

As Connie pocketed her phone and tied her winter coat around her waist, Lapis whooped and winged over to a silvery cylinder that had rolled free. "Boy am I glad to see this thing!" A section of the water hand was siphoned off, flowing into the metallic mallet that was already telescoping out to full size. Lapis took a practice swing in the corridor then drew back and delivered a hit to a stretch of wall hard enough Connie felt it through her sneakers.

Lapis poked her head through the new crumbly, circular 'window' she'd punched into the wall. "Oh, I'm going to break so much stuff," breathed the gem before raising a hand to her mouth and singing out, "~Oh Rosie dear~" She fired a quick wink and mock salute to Peridot and Connie before winging ahead. "Olly olly-" _WHAM!_ Another window. "-Oxen freeeeee~"

Connie felt Peridot squeeze Connie's hand, the small digits feeling soft and warm where she was used to cool, articulated tech. It was like having something small in her shoe that she could forget about only to be reminded of it by surprise a second later. Shoving all of that aside, though, Connie said back, "Yeah, me too. Good luck, Lapis."

With a nod, Peridot began to lead Connie down one corridor, though she did teeter on her feet several times and outright tripped a few yards later.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" worry clear in Connie's tone.

"No," answered the gem dejectedly. "But I'm not wounded, if that's your concern." She had to reach out and grab Connie's elbow for stability. "I am not accustomed to walking without my gravity connectors."

By the time they reached Jasper's cell Peridot was less like a novice on roller skates and more like someone trying to cross uneven ground. There was the yellow destabilizer field over the entrance and the cell looked identical to the ones Lapis and Peridot had been in. However, extending from the back wall at chest height was a large box about the same size and appearance as a microwave oven. Jasper's gemstone sat in the 'microwave' all while the box's interior was awash with crackling yellow energy, brighter and harsher to look at than the fields covering the doors.

Peridot hobbled over and then leaned against the wall beside Connie. "That destabilizer array is powered directly from the craft's crystal heart. The most efficacious way to contain a gem like Jasper is to never let her reform in the first place."

"Why don't they just bubble her?" asked Connie in a small voice.

Peridot without her tech? Jasper reduced to just her gemstone? She'd known to expect these on an intellectual level but emotionally she couldn't help but feel deeply rattled.

"That technique was discovered by Rebellion gems so there is a stigma associated with it," answered Peridot. "Additionally, only a minority of Era-1 gems have learned it and it is virtually unknown among Era-2s." She swallowed. "Also, it is considered too... merciful by many authorities."

Connie's eyes went wide. "Jasper's in pain like that?!"

The gem tried to rub under one eye and missed because her arm was quite a bit shorter than expected. She gave the truncated limb an offended look, then said somberly, "I have never experienced it personally, but retreating into one's gemstone is normally a time of repose and healing. Based on anecdotal accounts, destabilizer stasis is much less, erm, restful."

Without hesitating another second Connie rushed through the field securing the cell, her whole body jittering from the sensation, the hard light sword in her hand dissolved with a flash. At the opening to the 'microwave' Connie paused for the span of a single breath before she thrust her hand in, grabbing the small, angular gemstone while it felt like the nerves in Connie's right arm were being plucked like harp strings.

Pulling her arm out, she cradled the deceptively small stone in her left hand while she waved her right to try and shake the jitters free. She wanted to say something comforting, a promise that it would all be fine, that she would protect Jasper like Jasper had always protected her, but the uncertainty and the fear that she would be lying stayed her tongue.

She tried to make Jasper's trip through the entrance field as quick as possible while she darted out.

Connie stared at the lustrous orange stone, her world feeling slightly off balance right then. "How, uh, how soon do you think it’ll be until she reforms?"

In her peripheral vision Connie saw Peridot shake her head. "Quartzes are quick to reform, a gemetically perfect Jasper quicker still. However, destabilizer energy inhibits the reformation process and Jasper's stone was exposed to quite a bit of it." She shrugged. "To answer your question, I don't know but certainly not soon."

The girl slumped a little at the shoulders and gave a sad nod. She started to reach out to bubble Jasper, to send her home, when Peridot stopped her.

"There is a spatial limit to bubble teleportation and we are certainly well beyond it," explained the tech-free technician. "Otherwise Homeworld could have bubble-teleported entire armies to Earth during the Rebellion with only a single agent on the other end to free them. Bubbling Jasper here would serve no practical purpose while further delaying her eventual emergence."

 _Oh. I guess that makes sense,_ thought a corner of Connie. Casting about for any better option, the girl cleared out her left pant pocket and, gently, slide the slumbering stone in. If Jasper reformed and ripped the pocket, that was a price Connie was willing to pay to have her gruff guardian back sooner.

There was a bang and a tremor ran through the ship, Connie and Peridot looking at each other wide-eyed. "Lapis," they both said over one another.

"Swiftly," said Peridot hustling past Connie. "Bismuth's cell isn't far and then we'll need to make our way to the bridge."

Connie jogged after the green gem. "Why the bridge?"

Peridot's face turned bitter. "Because, hobbled like I am, it's the only place we'll be able to launch escape pods."

Another tremor shook the ship, the disturbance causing Peridot to pinwheel her arms for balance. It was only Connie rushing over and steadying her that kept her from face-planting.

"Which we are likely to need urgently," muttered the gem darkly.

* * *

Lapis, in her storied millennia on Earth and her much, much longer time being Blue Diamond's go-to mover and earthshaker, had been exposed to a bewildering array of naughty words and phrases. Ruby swears; Agate invectives; Quartz epithets aplenty; a panoply of human smack talk ranging across a hundred languages, dialects, and regions.

But before she'd ever even heard of Earth, word of Lapis' peculiar hobby had reached her Diamond's ears and she'd been summoned before Blue Diamond herself, asked to give a demonstration before the court.

Things had been more relaxed back in the early days of the empire.

After reaching her fifth straight hour insulting a Zircon --because you didn't lip off to your Diamond even if it was all in good fun-- Blue Diamond had called the demonstration to a close with a smile and a trio of pleased claps. She then dismissed the court, the great hall empty save for Blue Diamond, her Pearl, and Lapis.

Once the great doors had closed, Blue Diamond had beckoned Lapis close wearing a very un-Diamond-like smirk. "That was very amusing, Lapis Lazuli."

Lapis curtsied, this being back in her dress-wearing days, and tried to keep her smart mouth shut because, contrary to mounting evidence, she _did_ have a survival instinct.

"I had no idea that our subjects were so poetic, from the basest Ruby up to the proudest Hessonite," and Blue Diamond chuckled, a wave of blue energy bathing Lapis in a mirth too large for her comparatively tiny form to contain. Then her Diamond said in a pleased voice, "I have one more to add to your collection, Lapis Lazuli. A swear among Diamonds because Yellow and I sometimes engage in poetry of our own."

Beckoned closer, Lapis approached her Diamond with gem-deep reverence for the unexpected boon she was about to receive.

"How would you describe the worst idea possible?" asked her Diamond in a stately manner.

Lapis answered with expectant, wide-eyed silence.

Blue Diamond chuckled once more, the emotion rolling across the chamber, then said, "As useful as White Diamond's shadow."

Lapis was old enough she'd seen White Diamond twice before, and each time the matriarch had been almost too radiant to look upon.

A guffaw erupted from Lapis that was cut abruptly short when she clapped her hands over her mouth, the gem certain that moment would be her last as anything other than shards. But Blue Diamond had only tittered and sent Lapis away soon after.

It wasn't the funniest joke or the cleverest dig in Lapis' repertoire but given the source and the subject, it was in a class all its own. Lapis had never told anyone about that moment. It was hers and hers alone, a special, puerile pearl she clutched tightly to her being, the one memory which had been able to make her laugh no matter how deeply she'd sunk into a dark, depressive funk.

Back in the present Lapis stood in a chamber in the handship. It had contained some piece of equipment that had probably done something important but all Lapis cared about was that the stuff leaking out of it made a pretty good watercolor. She'd used the minute or so that followed to scrawl a number of her favorite swears on the walls, ceiling, floor, and observation dome overhead, her water hand hard at work painting an epithet in archaic Japanese when she saw a pink figure round the corner.

Drawing back, Lapis swung her mallet like she was a golfer teeing off, the weapon sending a heavy crystalline box flying straight at Rose's head. The gem's shield intercepted the projectile, which shattered into two dozen pieces. That fancy Pearl of hers, following close behind, jolted in surprise but no actual harm was done.

Not that that'd been the point.

"If you're looking for your Moissanite box," drawled Lapis, "you can find it over there. And there. Probably some in that corner too."

Rose lowered her shield and swept her gaze across the room, her expression dry, unamused. "It doesn't function inside the ship, you know."

"It doesn't function outside the ship either." Lapis leaned on her mallet, something crunching beneath it. "Not anymore."

"If this is meant to intimidate me, it doesn't," said Rose as she walked slowly and confidently into the room. "And I'm not laughing, so it fails as a joke too."

Lapis shrugged. "Really? Because I thought for sure you'd have a good sense of humor, dressing like that." She even mimed holding a Groucho Marx cigar in her free hand while she said it.

Like a vibrantly-colored predator closing in, Rose stalked slowly forward. "Something that _is_ funny is the fact that you think you can beat me." Her voice sounding syrupy sweet, Rose added, "Even that Peridot you're so besotted with put up a better fight than you did last time."

Lapis winged slowly backward maintaining the gap between them, her water hand hovering nearby. "No, you're right that in this tin can-" and the water fist rapped against one of the insult-covered walls, "-with only a bulk pack of Aquafina to toss around, me poofing you is a heckuva stretch. You're probably the toughest Era-1 thing to keep down outside of Blue Diamond's mood swings. But here's the rub: this bucket is an Era-2 and we both know how fragile those can be-" Propelled by hydrokinetic force, Lapis' water-filled mallet flew out and smashed a new window into a wall. "-Once you get past the armor plating. So I'll just keep smashing your ship and when I'm through, you can crawl out of the bubble you were hiding in and just push the junker back to Homeworld. Sound good?"

Rose shook her pink-framed head, sword held at the ready. "With the others onboard?" her voice deeply incredulous. Then, speaking without looking back, she said, "Pearl, keep searching for the others. We'll intercept them after I call Lapis' bluff."

Another smash accompanied by a shower of sparks. "You wanna take that bet, Rosy? You know me, always-" _shatter_ "-breaking stuff."

Rose's expression grew hard, dark eyes piercing Lapis. "You're a joke, Lapis. And the irony is, the Earth would have been better without you trying to defend it."

Lapis sent her mallet on a vandalism spree around the room while she met Rose's glare dead on, making sure her corruption-marked arms and rebel star were clearly visible. Dipping into something personal, something hers and hers alone, a metaphorical blue middle finger raised in defiance, Lapis said, "You're a coward, Rose. And Citrine needed you like White Diamond needs her shadow."

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Look it’s Lapis,_  
_All together,_  
_And I'm never running scared from the jeers of the likes of you,_  
_Because now I know better._  
_Shed some tears, Rosy dear, it's about to get wetter._

_This Crystal Gem ain't gonna fall for your snares,_  
_This is me without any more running scared._  
_Let's go, it's me v. you,_  
_Let's go, time for round two._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Rose lunged forward, sword held close, her shield expanded to offer her almost one-hundred-and-eighty degrees of protection. Lapis' water hand scooped up debris, flew past, and chucked it at her from behind, that fancy Pearl dancing back and speaking into a device that was presumably a communicator between her and that Peridot (who was no doubt overjoyed about the wrecking crew fighting on her ship).

Rose summoned a bubble by reflex, the scrap breaking harmlessly over it, then got punted when Lapis' mallet paused its demolition work to smack that bubble like a titan playing billiards. Sadly Rose didn't go flying through a wall because she did something funny with her floating power, slowing midair and then dropping delicately back down.

Still, that was time for Lapis to put more space between her and Rose while her hammer and hand continued ventilating the handship interior.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Go ahead and try to hurt me with your candor,_  
_I'm right here so go and hit me with your slander._  
_See, you can’t keep up with this twister,_  
_Not my fault that you're nerfed without your sister._

_You’re not gonna run from what you started,_  
_You’re gonna wish you never parted._  
_If you break me apart it won't change what I mean,_  
_You'll never be half the gem as Citrine._

_You’re just a-a-a_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_  
_Aa-a-a-aaa_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* * *

"-flow is down twenty-eight percent. Twenty-eight! The ship is only just now escaping planetary occlusion because _those clods keep damaging my tech!"_ shouted P2 into her communicator.

Connie heard this because she was right up next to the door, having dropped to one knee and laced her hands together to boost Peridot up to the door controls. The green gem was trying --from memory because her records had been accessible through her limb enhancers-- to enter the standard access codes used throughout the Homeworld empire, or at least the ones that had been common when she'd still been a technician for Homeworld.

"Furthermore, something that Lapis Lazuli broke is causing my sensor array to malfunction, because these readings make no sense. You'd almost think there was- Gah! Intruders! Intruders on the bridge!"

The controls had chimed and the heavy doors began to slide open, Connie setting Peridot down and assuming an offensive stance as she entered the gap.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Don't touch that!_

_Please refrain!_

_You can’t comprehend this technology._

_You're misguided; can’t you see we already won?_  
_When Rose gets back, this isn’t going to be much fun._

_I mean it! Desist!_

_I don't want to think of the length of the list of rules you're breaking!_  
_Not to mention the ridiculous mess you're making..._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"This is a restricted area!" shouted P2. "Please return to your cells." She fired a tractor beam at Connie but the girl blocked it with a vertical force field, already summoning her sword.

Trying to be mindful of Jasper's gem in her pocket and Bismuth's bulkier stone tucked into the hood of the winter coat tied around her waist, Connie popped around the field and fired an arc of electricity in P2's direction. Her aim was a little off but the console across the bridge that was smoking and dying had pretty much the same effect, the mottled technician screaming in alarm and dismay.

P2 had just reconfigured her limb enhancers to blaster-mode when Connie realized this was probably the first, best, true opportunity to use her CP power as it was originally intended to be used: no 'keep the monster from retreating' and no 'Rose will enact horrible revenge if you try it.'

The world went silent, Connie's winter coat fell to the floor, suddenly no longer supported. The control room, though it was right in front of her eyes, stopped being important as Connie took in the fractal expanse before her. With certainly born of magical intuition, Connie sought out the oh-so-malleable part of the pattern and _yanked_.

The growing plasma spheres on P2's limb enhancers winked out and the gem's eyes shrank to tiny pinpricks of panic. Limb enhancers thrust upward, mouth open in a scream Connie couldn't hear, the mottled technician ran pell-mell toward the far side of the bridge. However, Peridot had emerged from behind Connie, taken cover behind a station in the middle of the floor, and was busy trying to pry a panel open with stubby fingers. P2 all but bowled into Peridot, pivoted on a gravity connector like a poorly-puppeted marionette, then ran shrieking past Connie and out the door.

* * *

There was a whirring noise and Rose rocketed forward in a spindash. Lapis had a split-second of surprise --if the emotion was translated to words it'd probably be, _Oh, right. Rose Quartz is a_ Quartz _and can do that._ \-- before she winged blindly to the side, avoiding the pinkish-white blur.

It turns out floaty-inertia powers and spindashing allow for some pretty freaky maneuvering because the Rose blur made what was effectively one ninety degree turn after another like she was riding one of those light bikes from _TRON_. It was all Lapis could do to stay ahead of the pink boulder because flying in a confined space sucked like that, but based on the sensations she was getting back from her water hand, she only needed to keep bouncing around like a pinball for a few.

More.

Seconds.

_DONE!_

A roughly circular, twenty foot-wide section of floor shifted, all the supports but two having been smashed through. The 'but two' part was important because it meant the floor didn't drop --Rose would just floaty-power across a sudden hole-- but rather swung like one of those bathroom trash can lids mounted on a pivot. So when Rose inevitably froze midair, the other side of the disc was already swinging over to whomp her, knocking her downward like a revolving door turned on its side.

Or rather, it should have. Those floaty powers were the real deal, however, as the pink Quartz managed to arrest the floor’s spin while only halfway through.

"Oh no you don't!" cackled Lapis gleefully, her hammer flying through a wall and straight to her outstretched hand like she was freakin' Thor. "Down ya go!" and she brought the mallet down on the floor Rose was holding up.

Rose, however, was no dummy either and made herself light as a feather the second the mallet struck. This meant Rose was rocketed down to the room below but it also meant that the swinging floor was swinging way faster than Lapis had expected. The blue gem was sucked into her own revolving door trap and slung below with a surprised cry.

The pink Quartz was charging Lapis before the blue gem had even hit bottom. It was only that reflexive bubble of hers deflecting a water hand punch that kept Lapis from getting diced up. Then there was a snap overhead and the formerly spinning floor was now falling as the final supports gave. Lapis zipped back as Rose added an upraised shield to the bubble to tank having a twenty-foot-wide slab of floor dropped on her... because Rose was more of a pain to squish than the Lego bricks Bismuth sometimes left scattered across the Beach House floor.

Whatever room Lapis had dropped them into was dim but bathed in a strong reddish-pink glow. Sparing a glance away from Collateral Damage Barbie, the gem made a little mental gasp when she realized where they were: the crystal heart of the handship.

 _Well,_ thought Lapis dryly. _At least this will help sell the idea that I'm too reckless to be left alone,_ and then she wordlessly hoped Con-con and Dot were almost to those frickin' escape pods.

Chucking the ruins off her, Rose allowed her bubble to drop as she squared off against Lapis. She looked... yeah, she looked pretty done with Lapis' crap.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_This is what I am_  
_And what I'll always be_  
_A savior or a monster?_  
_Doesn't matter much to me._

_I'm no longer hiding_  
_From what I have done_  
_I accept I hurt my planet_  
_But you can't say what I'll become._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

* * *

"Aaaah!"

A corner of Peridot Facet-2B2Y Cut-5XG wondered if screaming somehow enhanced the act of escaping. She wondered that (in her very limited, panic-stricken way) because she seemed to be doing a lot of it just then.

She was a carefully crafted component in the grand machine of the Diamond Authority, designed for efficiency, utility, and intelligence, so it stood to reason that this automatic reaction had been included deliberately. A deliberate inclusion _must_ have a compelling justification, therefore screaming while fleeing was, somehow, advantageous. QED.

Operating on the carefully reasoned principle that friends were good and enemies were bad, Peridot 2B2Y sprinted down a corridor then rounded a corner, Amethyst Facet-5 Cut-8XM visible inside the cell Rose Quartz had confined her to.

"Wha- Peridude? Let me out! Let me out!" // "Let me in! Let me in!" shouted Amethyst and Peridot, respectively.

Using the haptic controls inside her limb enhancers, Peridot remotely disabled the destabilizer containment field just long enough for her to enter the cell before reenabling it behind her.

"What's happening?!" inquired Amethyst loudly.

Fortunately the palpable sense of panic had subsided enough that Peridot reacquired her powers of speech. Perhaps the screaming had expedited the process. Not that Peridot found herself much calmer --"Anarchy! Insurrection!" she replied-- merely better equipped to express herself.

Amethyst shook her head, no doubt obeying a Quartzine instinct to better survey her surroundings for threats. "Well, Peridude, we need to get out of here!"

An alert appeared on Peridot's visor, displaying a projectile's approach vector (mostly on-target), velocity (high), and payload (very high).

"Yes. Yes! You are precisely right, Amethyst," answered Peridot, already accessing the ship's controls remotely. "We must all get out of here. Immediately!"

The command was sent and a fraction of a second later the floor of the cell was rising up, forming a spherical enclosure encompassing her and Amethyst both. It would be snug within the escape pod but that was tractable given Amethyst's space-efficient form.

"Whoa! Quoi-" was as far as Amethyst's vocalization got before the sphere sealed them in, the internal atmosphere replaced with shock-absorbing fluid, and the pod was ejected away from the ship toward the planet below.

Theirs was actually the sixth pod launched because the enemy had somehow obscured an orbital weapons platform and Peridot reasoned that one or more of the escape pods might be targeted en route. Being in the middle of the pack seemed the statistically optimal position, which is why her command had launched all eleven pods consecutively.

Ironically it wasn’t until Peridot was hurtling through space with a confused Era-1 Quartz clutching her that she finally felt the panic fall away entirely, clarity of thought rushing back with it.

Ah, that was better.

It was slightly difficult to reach the controls when Amethyst had her arm shapeshifted into a tentacle and wrapped tightly around both of them --no doubt to better shield Peridot with her robust Quartz physic from their inevitable impact-- but she managed to wriggle a limb enhancer past and make a slight course correction, ensuring they’d land on the continent possessing the primary Kindergarten.

Peridot awarded herself a point for cleverness --literally: there was an electronic tally stored in her enhancers-- and made a note to explain her resourcefulness in the face of rebel incursion to Rose Quartz. Then she realized with a sinking sensation in her form that, with all the escape pods launched and the warship doomed, Rose Quartz could very well not make it off either.

After a brief pause Peridot opened a separate file and awarded herself one demerit.

By the time the pod was shaking from atmospheric entry, though, Peridot had reasoned that the fault was overwhelmingly the rebels’, it being their insurrection and their orbital weapons platform. She reduced the penalty to only a fractional demerit.

Self-critique was vital but only when it was fair.

Then the pod’s shaking got worse and Amethyst’s grip tightened --crossing the threshold from ‘snug’ to ‘crushing’-- and Peridot felt the urge to scream again, this time with the novel addition of doing so in a dense, liquid medium.

“Bluuugh!”

* * *

If Rose had so much as a cracked nail, she'd cry that fixed too. Lapis... Lapis was feeling it, especially where she'd caught that shield across the thigh. But she wasn't about to give Homeworld's hatchet woman (or her fancy Pearl waiting from the sidelines) the satisfaction by showing it.

Bathed in the reddish-pink glow of the crystal heart, Lapis zigged, zagged, and gave Rose the ol' punch-punt-slam with her water fist and mallet, just managing to evade that freakin' sword of hers as she jinked back, some more taunts rising to her lips.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Go ahead and try to hit me if you're able,_  
_Between us, you're the one who's unstable._  
_I know you think I'm nothing to be scared of,_  
_‘Cause you think you know what I'm afraid of!_

_You're angry 'cause you know that you're a sham._  
_All of my regrets don't define who I am._

_I’m full of fury. I’m out of patience._  
_I think we’re about done._

_Because you're_  
_a-a-a_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_

_And I'm braver than you._

_a-a-a_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_  
_Cow-aa-a-ard_

_And I'm braver than you._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A thrown shield clipped one of Lapis’ wings and the world suddenly became a very bewildering carnival ride. Taking a best guess at where to dodge, Lapis gave a one-wing flap that meant she was only punted across the room by a shield bash when Rose float-jumped at her; it beat the sword through the chest that she’d evaded.

Water hand ran interference while Lapis used her mallet to help her to her feet. This was getting too hot; Lapis needed to get the heck out of this room and drag out this fight elsewhere. Or, better still, get the signal that Dot and Con-con were off-ship and become a blue dot in the big black nothing outside.

The pink-white spindash of Rose was nearly on top of her when Lapis resummoned her wings and launched herself out of the way. However, Rose hit the side of the room and banked up, a blur of motion going _up the wall_ instead of through.

Whatever. If Lapis could just get through the hole in the-

Winging to a sudden stop, Lapis looked gobsmacked at where _just a moment ago_ had been a twenty-foot-wide gap out of this cage match. Instead there was a flawless expanse of ceiling, very conspicuous in its not-flyable-through-ness. Had that Peridot of theirs fixed it somehow? Had Rose somehow cry-sealed Lapis’ escape route without her noticing?

Lapis’ speculation was cut abruptly short when she was bowled out of the air by a pink wrecking ball that told inertia and momentum to sit and swivel. Lapis’ landing amid the crystal wreckage in one corner was none too soft and she could feel that itch to see what was going on inside her gemstone just then.

Rose came out of her spindash and dropped to the floor with the weight of a gem ten times her size, the ground shuddering with the impact. She was advancing on Lapis and if glares could shatter…

Lapis glared right back at her. It looked like she was going to be breaking her promise to Peridot and to a part of her that was more painful than, well, all the pain. But whatever happened, she wasn’t going out giving Rose the satisfaction of seeing her break.

Not again, not ever.

* * *

Connie sealed the entrance to the bridge with as big a vertical force field as she could make, though judging from P2’s screams receding down the hallway it would be a good long while before the barrier was needed.

That accomplished, Connie ran over to where Peridot was, the short gem struggling to open a panel on a console that, if this were the Enterprise, would have been where Lieutenant Commander Data sat. Ushering her guardian aside, she used her sword as a crowbar and pried the panel outward.

There was a spindle-shaped green crystal which, with a twist and a yank, Peridot pulled free. “Ahah!” cried the gem as the lighting on the bridge shifted subtly.

“Ma’am?” asked Connie, looking about warily.

“This is a data crystal, specifically the one which all authentication is routed through. Without it, the ship reverts to the factory defaults for security passcodes. That means I should be able to launch escape pods despite lacking my limb enhancers’ electronic intrusion suite.” Peridot beamed with pride until she noticed she was looking up at Connie to do so, her mood then deflating some.

The green gem padded over to Connie, tucking the crystal into the folds of the coat tied around her waist. “There could be other data of note stored on the crystal, so we should-”

Just then a large, green sphere emerged from the floor about a dozen paces away from Connie and Peridot. Connie instinctively trained her sword on it but didn’t attack when it started to sink back into the ground without doing anything threatening. A failed trap? A malfunction? Connie had no idea.

She was especially confused when Peridot gave a startled cry of, “No!” and dove for the descending sphere, landing with a thud on the patch of floor it had just vanished through.

“What was that?” asked Connie, sweeping the control room for threats.

“An escape pod!” cried Peridot, scrabbling to her feet.

“You mean like those?” and Connie pointed to the large view screen showing a cluster of green spheres hurtling toward the distant Earth.

There was another cry from Peridot, the green gem dropping dramatically to her knees. “That Zeta-Kindergarten clod launched _all_ the escape pods!”

Peridot gave a panicked sweep of the control room when she spied a console and effectively ran on all fours in her haste to get across the room. With surprising speed for someone who could hardly see over the lip of the console, Peridot hammered away at the controls. “Entering default passcode, accessing helm controls, and- GAH!”

If only from repetition, Connie was starting to get inured to Peridot’s cries of alarm. She jogged over, summoning a small, horizontal force field for Peridot to stand on as a booster. The writing on the console was all gem glyphs but the flashing red lights were a pretty universal symbol for bad news.

“Doom cannon shot incoming! Taking evasive maneuvers! Brace for impact!” cried the technician a half-second before the ship lurched, first from inertia as the engines fired, pushing hard to bring the vessel back into the no-fire zone surrounding the Earth itself, and then when a massive, hard light projectile strafed the ship, tearing away armor plating and bulkhead like so much tissue paper.

As several consoles exploded into showers of sparks and Connie was flung to one side like a rag doll, a distant, irreverent corner of her remarked on the fact that this looked almost exactly like when the Enterprise took damage.

* * *

Just as pink was filling Lapis’ vision, the Quartz readying for the finishing blow, the ship shook like a drum. Then a wall, the crystal heart, and most of the floor decided to go for a space walk on the hearty recommendation of an enormous giga-pillow. This was accompanied by a great deal of noise and then a great deal of silence as all the atmosphere thought it’d tag along too.

For a split-second Rose remained in place, anchored to the deck of the ship like her boots had ten-ton insoles or something. Then that fancy Pearl of hers got sucked out, hurtling past, and Rose leapt out, grabbing her and engulfing the both of them in a bubble that bounced off a few pieces of debris before vanishing out of sight.

Lapis, clinging to her mallet which she was pinning down to the remains of the floor with enough hydrokinetic force to crack pavement, saw the hologram vanish that had disguised the hole overhead. She shook her head and gave a silent laugh because that was too clever by half.

_Frickin’ Pearls, right?_

Then, aching across her form but still able to summon her wings, Lapis winged out through the great gap in space and decided she’d give a jaunty little wave to the poor schmuck of a Peridot who was probably looking out through the bridge wondering what’d just hit her.

The handship was drifting back towards Earth because throwing half your atmo out the window was thrust of the messiest sort. If it meant no more giga-pillows then maybe Lapis would poof the Peridot onboard; after all, it was that or let her get cooked well-done in reentry. Heck, she could even swipe her limb enhancers in the process and give Peridot the single best present in the history of ever.

So it was with more than a little dismay that Lapis reached the outside of the bridge and saw the wrong Peridot frantically hammering at unpowered controls.

Connie, spotting her, walked over and waved. With a complete lack of enthusiasm Lapis waved back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics to _Braver Than You_ were written by the Connie Swap Team. The in-chapter art was created by BurdenKing and MJStudioArts.
> 
> I imagine some of you were surprised to find the person to fight Rose was Lapis and not a fusion of some sort. There was all kinds of very exciting and well-thought-out speculation over in the Connie Swap Discord along those lines, speculating that it might be Hiddenite to fight Rose, or perhaps Connie fusing with one of the gems for the first time. And that very well could have happened; it wouldn't have been an unsupportable twist.
> 
> And I wanted to speak briefly on why that didn't happen, why Lapis fought Rose solo instead of us doing something more directly parallel to canon.
> 
> The first reason was because this represents a major point in Lapis' character arc. She's spent pretty much the entire fic up to this point awash in self-loathing and regret, trapped or at least influenced by what she considers to be her grave misdeeds of the past. In fits and starts Lapis has improved from the self-centered and volatile goof of Episode 1, learning to stop running from her mistakes, learning to voice her problems instead of waiting for them to erupt outward, learning to be a better friend to the other Crystal Gems in general and companion to Peridot specifically. But in the close of Ch4 and here in Ch5 we see her finally accepting her past mistakes and moving beyond them rather than succumbing to or fleeing from them. Having her stand up to Rose, who exploited those same vulnerabilities outside the handship, was Lapis' chance to loudly announce this new phase of development to all on both sides of the fourth wall.
> 
> The other reason is a difference in theme. In canon, Garnet fighting Jasper was a refutation of the Quartz' bigotry, challenging Jasper's biases against fusion while having her fight and lose to a fusion. It was a superb visual metaphor for that theme. CS!Rose, however, isn't a fusion bigot and having her fight a fusion, win or lose, wouldn't be as directly thematic as in canon. Instead Rose is an emblem of the war, Homeworld and the rival half of the Rebellion both embodied in one gem. She returned and took the Crystal Gems to pieces and now Lapis has stood up, refusing to hide her physical and emotional scars from the war any longer and instead embracing the person she's since become.
> 
> Not that it wouldn't have been cool as hell to have Hiddenite or some hypothetical Connie-Lapis or Connie-Peridot fusion square off against Rose, but that's not what we chose to do here and I hope that helps contextualize why.
> 
> Oh, and to my earlier remark about Lapis' scars from the war, I realized I'd forgotten to include this sketch below in the Ch4 post-chapter section. This is the early sketch MJ did of Lapis' corruption marks:  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	6. Down to Earth

"The ship is on a collision course with Earth and there's no means of propulsion available to prevent that. The primary reactor was involuntarily jettisoned and the secondary reactors are in unknown condition and could go critical at any point." Peridot paced hurriedly up and down the length of the bridge as she spoke, filled with the kind of nervous energy that was only a whisker removed from open panic.

Lapis thought she sounded like if that Pixar emotions movie had needed a character named 'Hysteria' but kept that detail to herself. Instead she tightened her hold on the half hug she had Connie in and listened to the debrief.

"The doom cannon that grazed the ship won't fire again because the angle is such that it risks targeting the Earth. However, when the next cannon's orbit brings it around, there's a chance it'll have a cleaner firing vector."

Lapis gave an 'mhm' of agreement. "So we don't want to stick around," she summarized.

Peridot stumbled a little and steadied herself on a console with those little arms of hers. "Precisely. And should the ship not explode or be destroyed from space, it may break apart during atmospheric reentry."

Connie raised her head from Lapis' side, adding in a small voice, "It'll definitely break when it crashes."

Small hands were tugging at Peridot's hair as she paced. "All the escape pods were launched, all control systems are offline, and the ship is partially depressurized."

In a wavering voice, Connie quipped, "You and Lapis went up and down from space all the time, ma'am. So the two of you can escape no matter what."

Lapis was about to say something when Peridot beat her to it, the gem all but shrieking, "Absolutely _not!"_ She tried to bring her arm down on something for a dramatic 'wham' but it came off as more of a muted thud. "We will find a way for you to escape safely to Earth _and that is final!"_

Lapis felt a small head nod meekly against her torso. Draping an arm around the girl's shoulder, she said, "Alright. So what are our options? Water hand's an expanding cloud in space and my mallet is empty because all the good stuff snuck out when the atmosphere did-" She flicked the can-shaped device at her hip earning a hollow 'ting'. "-But I can fly pretty dang quick. Can Con-con just hold her breath while I make an express trip to Earth?"

Peridot shook her head, looking haggard. "No. The acceleration needed to save Connie from asphyxiation would prove fatal, to say nothing of the trauma of reentry. Human bodies were not built to withstand anything like this situation."

"We bubble her."

"We're too far to bubble teleport her back, she'd run out of oxygen in the bubble, and acceleration would be just as much of a problem as before," replied Peridot.

"Don't suppose a Wolf Ex Machina is on the table, is it?" asked the blue gem, looking down.

Connie shook her head. "I've been trying but there’s been no sign of him. Maybe we're too far away for howl portals, or maybe he doesn't know where to go."

"You're sure all the escape pods are gone, Dot?"

"Eleven is the full complement, and we wouldn't be able to launch additional ones absent power anyway."

"Hey, what if we just made a big box full of air, locked Con-con inside, and flew it over to the Satellite of Love?" Lapis felt pretty proud of that idea, honestly. “She can chill while we, I dunno, borrow a space suit from NASA or something.”

"Satellite of what?" asked girlie.

Peridot's face lit up but then it crashed back down, the gem dropping to her knees and wailing, "That would absolutely work _if we still had my limb enhancers!_ As is, we possess none of the tools needed to salvage an airtight vessel!"

Connie left Lapis' side and tried to step closer but Peridot buried her head in her arms. "My Connie is going to expire in the void of space because _I'm too worthless_ to save her! I can't- I can't-" and whatever the rest of her sentence was got swallowed up in sob seemingly too large for her body to handle, coming out in a series of breathless heaves instead.

Lapis was doing her level best to be the calm one in the room but seeing Dot crumble like that was making it hard. Connie wasn't doing much better, trying to reach Peridot in whatever pit of despair she'd sunk to, moisture pooling at the corners of the girl's eyes.

Then, all of the sudden, Connie jolted upright, eyes a thousand miles away. "I think I know a way," she said a little dazed. Then she dropped to a crouch and grabbed Dot's shoulders. "Ma'am! _Ma'am!_ I think I know how to get me back to Earth!"

With some difficulty Peridot pulled herself up out of her ball of despair, wiping her face with her hands. "Wha- How?" she managed eventually.

Trying and mostly succeeding at keeping the fear off her face, Connie said, "You and Lapis fly back to Earth. With me. Insubstantial me."

* * *

It was five minutes later and they'd reached an airlock without the ship overloading and exploding or a doom cannon orbiting out past the curvature of the Earth and blowing them all up. So far so good.

Connie offered up her winter coat, Lapis taking it and using it to lash Peridot to herself. Connie made a point of not drawing the Babybjörn comparison that presented itself.

"The single most important thing," said Peridot, her guardian with a look of fearful hope in her eyes. "Is that we remain within one hundred feet of Connie at all times. Beyond that and her Colored Perception power will not function. The only part of her that will be tangible to us is her soft light gemstone. Laz, you will be the primary for holding Connie's gemstone though you may pass it to me if the situation dictates."

Cinching the coat/harness tight, Lapis said, "You sure you don't want gemstone duty, Dot?"

As the two shifted, adjusting to being lashed together, Connie stepped in close. She quickly patted the pockets of her coat-cum-harness, making sure Bismuth's gemstone and the crystal spindle were not going to pop out and drift away ten seconds into exiting the ship. With a final pat at her own pant pocket, feeling the reassuring presence of Jasper's gemstone, she stepped clear of the pair; the orange stone had remained in her pocket when she'd gone insubstantial on the bridge so it'd be making the trip down with her as well.

Peridot shrunk in on herself. "I fear my coordination is insufficient to the task in light of my... disarming." She sniffed. "I only caution you to be firm but not too firm in your hold."

Lapis ruffled Peridot's hair and said, "Sure. I'll be careful with our gal. You can hold her the next time we decide to go ultimate skydiving. Man, that Felix Baumgartner guy is going to be so cheesed off when he hears his record got sniped by a fourteen year old without a parachute."

Peridot gave a laugh that had a hysterical edge to it. "Lapis, if we all make it to Earth safely, I will mount a light cannon on Tik-Tok and instruct it to blast anything that so much as _attempts_ to elevate Connie from terra firma." She giggled manically. "I expect the stairs will be the first casualties."

This earned a nervous laugh from everyone, each of them varying degrees of terrified.

In a rush, Connie reached out with that indefinable sense of hers and the world went silent, taking the plunge because waiting would only be worse. The colors of Lapis' and Peridot's 'scapes made clear what she'd known all along, but she appreciated the brave face each of them was trying to present.

Seized by an unstoppable force, a feather-light Connie was lifted off the floor when Lapis took hold of her gemstone. With her free hand, Lapis worked the airlock controls, stepped into the inner lock, and everyone shared another look in the seconds before the air was vacated and the door thrown open to space.

Connie was weightless. Not that she weighed anything like this, but suddenly 'down' was gone and Connie was drifting, held in place only by thin blue fingers. Lapis and Peridot looked at Connie and the girl gave them a thumbs up, trying and failing to ignore the fact that she was literally floating in a freezing vacuum empty of just about everything except radiation. It wasn't that she needed to breathe while insubstantial back on Earth, but the fact that she _could have_ was very comforting, or at least it’s absence here was deeply unsettling.

With that, Lapis summoned her wings and kicked out the airlock and into space proper.

It took about two minutes for Connie to go from profound heebie jeebies to not thinking about it to marveling at her situation, because it was hard to be scared when nothing bad was happening and you were effectively fulfilling a lifelong dream. Her favorite G.A.L. toy had been the astronaut, after all.

 _I'm in space. I'm in space? I'M IN SPACE!_ was the general tenor of Connie's inner dialogue just then. With some difficulty, Connie ignored the mindscapes visible to her and focused on a different seemingly impossible vista before her: open space!

The handship drifted behind them, Lapis picking up speed. It was crisscrossed with signs of damage: from the arrival to Earth, from Lapis' sabotage spree, and from taking a glancing blow from a shot meant to deflect asteroids. The skies didn't twinkle but were blazing beacons in a vast, VAST tapestry of purest night. And hovering before them, huge like nothing else was, stood the Earth.

It'd be a misstatement to say it took Connie's breath away, but it was an awe-inspiring sight all the same. A part of Connie wondered if her mother had ever gotten to see this, if maybe seeing that blue sphere spinning in the cold void, an oasis of life in an impossibly vast desert, had helped galvanize her to fight on its behalf.

A blue hand waved in front of Connie's face (lit by Peridot's glowing gemstone) and when she looked over, she saw Lapis mouth the words, 'Pretty cool, eh?' with exaggerated slowness. Connie smiled in return and nodded enthusiastically.

After all, if this _did_ work, it'd be pretty much the coolest thing ever.

The Earth loomed larger with bewildering quickness. _Wow, just how fast is Lapis going?_ a corner of Connie marveled. Then again, without atmosphere to worry about, with two gems and an insubstantial passenger who were all immune to whiplash, there was no reason to take it slow. A glance back and Connie was shocked to find the handship impossible to make out, lost among the star-dappled blackness.

Space was just that BIG.

Gradually the black to either side of her became graduations of darkest blue. They were entering the atmosphere and, if Connie wasn't mistaken, there was a faint tremble in her gemstone, a vibration transmitted from Lapis to her.

The Earth just grew larger and larger in her view until there was nothing else and Connie had to fight down a sudden, overwhelming surge of vertigo. As shutting out the view with closed eyes wasn’t an option with transparent eyelids, she instead escaped into the mindscapes nearby.

 _Lapis looks different in a way._ Connie looked long and hard at the great swirling ocean of blue that was the gem's scape. Finally she realized that the pattern had shifted: previously everything was routed through areas of sadness and regret, an inescapable layer of apprehension to experience the world through.

Now, however, there had been what looked like a current shift on an oceanographer's chart; the regrets were still there but there were channels that would allow Lapis to experience life without always being reminded of what Connie assumed were her past mistakes.

 _This is what acceptance looks like,_ she realized and she felt a surge of pride for the gem. Looking again, she could see lines of golden confidence and bravery weaving through the predominantly blue mindscape. She'd skimmed a library book once about using melted gold to fix broken porcelain. The author had said that the practice highlighted the breaks, embracing them as part of the artistry of the porcelain and what Connie was looking at with her mind's eye reminded her of that.

She made a mental note to look up that book again and share it with Lapis. Along with hugs and Pocky because the gem deserved it.

With some difficulty Connie pulled herself away from Lapis' scape and focused on the world around her. Wind was whipping through Lapis' long blue hair, sending it flying back like a cape. The gem's mouth was a thin line as she focused on flying, the hand not holding Connie's gemstone being wrapped tightly around Peridot's midsection.

Peridot, however, had eyes only on Connie. Noticing the girl's alert expression --she knew from Steven that she tended to get a thousand yard stare while gazing at people's 'scapes-- Peridot offered a smile over sad eyes. 'Hello dear,' she mouthed, reaching out with a strangely small arm to faux-caress Connie's insubstantial cheek. 'I love you,' she added and if it looked like she was going to cry, it didn't undermine the truth of those words.

'I love you too, ma'am,' replied Connie soundlessly. Peridot looked surprised for a second and Connie wasn't sure why. Then the world jostled, Lapis navigating some air current or something, and Connie flung herself back into the comfort of the 'scapes.

Peridot was so low right now. Connie had seen her green guardian's 'scape during her previous bout of depression following the launch: that had been laced with fear and hopelessness. Here there was fear but it was something more personal. A fear of inadequacy, Connie finally decided. Peridot had always been proud, even during her previous hopelessness, but now all of that pride was heavily tinged with fear. Would Peridot be able to contribute as a Crystal Gem? Would she be able to still tinker, research, garden, and maintain her robonoids absent her limb enhancers? Would she be able to care for Connie and the Beach House without her tech to assist her? Connie couldn’t read thoughts but it was a near-certainty that Peridot was thinking all of that and more while dreading the answer to each and every single one.

But that was all background. In the foreground was a blinding bonfire of maternal fears, anxiety, and white-hot hope. If Lapis' 'scape featured prominent swaths of regret, Peridot's featured a giant section that could pretty much be called 'mom worries'. It wasn't literally Connie-shaped but it may as well have been.

_When you say, 'I love you too, ma'am' wordlessly, it looks the same as mouthing, 'I love you too, mom,' a part of Connie observed._

Citrine was Connie's mother: she had her stone, her legacy, part of what Citrine had been was now part of Connie herself. Citrine had tried to reach across the divide of time with her journal... but she hadn't written it to Connie, she'd written it to the daughter she would never know.

If anyone could be considered Connie's mom, the woman to have raised her, loved her, and nurtured her every step of the way, there was only one real answer.

Forcing her focus away from the mindscape, Connie stared at Peridot, insubstantial tears forming at the corners of her eyes and defying the roaring wind by falling straight down. 'I love you, Mom,' she said silently. It felt a little odd, instinct wanting to form 'ma'am,' but on a different level it also felt very right.

It was hard to tell from Peridot’s expression if the gem had parsed the added, personal meaning Connie had intended, but to judge from the bursts of affection within her ‘scape, at least a fraction had come across.

Connie emerged from the peek at Peridot’s mindscape and was shocked at the change around her. The world had previously been an expanse stretching out literally to the curvature of the Earth, the ground below looking more like an impossibly detailed miniature than anything real. But suddenly the breadth of Connie's world shrank down to Lapis, Peridot, and an indistinct haze of the interior of a cloud. Turbulence rocked Lapis and Peridot, Connie being jolted as a consequence.

The winter coat holding Peridot in place started to slip free and Lapis and Peridot were flailing, one green hand going to grip tightly the part of the coat that held Bismuth's gemstone.

There was another bout of turbulence and Peridot slipped free for a second, Lapis (still holding Connie) diving down to grab the technician before she'd vanished into the obscuring fog. But then the coat started to escape and Lapis grabbed that at the same time Peridot did and their hands collided, the coat nearly escaping before Peridot hooked it haphazardly between her feet. Then the world lurched with turbulence and for a split-second Lapis and Peridot were right in front of her and in the next they were gone, replaced by an endless, cloudy nothing.

There was a brief stretching sensation and then Connie shrieked as she was assaulted by a cold so intense it hit her like a charging Quartz. She was cold -- _COLD_ \--, damp, wind was roaring in her ears and whipping at her face, and the world had started to spin.

Connie HQ was pure panic. She tried reaching out with her CP power but nothing was working and she wasn't sure if it was thin air, rushing wind, or sheer, constricting cold but Connie was finding it hard to get enough air in her lungs. She repeatedly considered and vetoed summoning force fields to bank off; that'd helped save her after getting flung skyward by the inverted pyramid's explosion, but here she was already approaching terminal velocity and Connie couldn't imagine any interaction with her oh-so-stationary force fields that didn't end terribly.

Suddenly the world expanded around Connie, clouds soaring up as Connie plummeted down. The ground was far away but only airplane-far, not space-far and getting closer with every second. She swung around looking for Lapis and Peridot but couldn't make them out, the wind and her own terrified screams omnipresent.

Below was a stretch of coastline dotted with lights. It looked vaguely familiar but it wasn't until Connie made a dizzying spin and oriented it the right way that she realized it was Delmarva seen from above. Way above.

 _I just need to be insubstantial when I hit bottom,_ thought Connie in scarcely controlled panic. _If there's someone looking up, if someone sees me or hears me and I would land within a hundred feet of them then I could go insubstantial and hit with less force than a soap bubble._

Another corner of Connie objected: she couldn't remember how fast terminal velocity was, but she knew it was fast enough that a hundred feet would pass by in an instant; likely too fast for her to react.

Connie tried to bubble herself and, on the fifth try actually managed to form a bubble but it was instantly ripped from her hands by the roaring wind. She was so cold, so terrified, she didn't know what to do and she didn't want to d-

Connie's pocket was yanking at her. With tear-clouded eyes and cold-numb fingers she batted at the pocket, wondering what was happening when she felt an object _pop_ out. There was something small spinning in the air in front of her, something glowing white-orange and growing larger and-

"Jasper?!"

The Perfect Quartz had finally reformed, having spent most of the time in space in Connie's pant pocket. Things were too chaotic for Connie to get a good look, but it was clear the Quartz had updated her look during her time poofed.

In an instant the world was quiet and, subjectively, _much_ , much warmer. The spirals of orange, white, and black that were Jasper's mindscape had never looked so amazing as they did just then, a relief so profound gripping Connie that she was crying insubstantial tears over it.

Tearing herself away from the 'scape, she got a better look at Jasper, offering the gem a tearful thumbs up. To the gem's credit, reforming mid-skydive next to a shrieking Connie hadn't cracked the warrior's legendary unflappability. Jasper offered a warm thumbs up in return.

Jasper's mindscape had contained rage, sadness, aggression, patience, love, hatred, certainty, and doubt, all in absolute barriers of self-discipline. She'd been the first gem whose 'scape Connie had ever seen and Connie could contrast that memory with the reality before her. The sadness was, if anything, more prevalent but not as deep. The same could be said of the certainty, which had once been iron-clad but was now merely firm. The love looked different too, but even Connie's power-given instinct couldn't intuit what exactly that meant, but she somehow thought the ‘scape before her looked healthier, better balanced than the one she’d first glimpsed months ago.

Regardless, this was just the latest in a years’-long chain of Jasper rescuing Connie, always with selfless resolve, always with total dedication, never asking for anything from Connie save that she try to live up to her own potential.

Maybe there was something about orbital plunges that made you appreciate your family more.

The beach was rising up to meet them, it being a toss up if Connie was going to land on sand or water. In a silence that was only complete for Connie, Jasper gave her a wave and then another thumbs up. Then the Quartz banked a little to make sure she was positioned over the water while still within range of Connie’s CP power. Finally she rotated so that she would be doing a back-first cannon ball, the gem curling in protectively to keep the stone on her face sheltered.

Finally the land charged at Connie and she couldn't help but deliver a silent scream in a silent world.

Jasper hit the water with the sort of splash associated with naval mine explosions.

Connie was falling at terminal velocity, having plummeted all the way from the cold vacuum of space, the ground racing up to meet her and then... she wasn't falling anymore. There was the suggestion of an impact and then Connie was lying on the unyielding sand as though she'd only tripped over her shoelaces.

Physically, Connie was completely okay. Mentally, her expectations and emotions were all complaining of severe whiplash.

Just then a pair of vistas appeared in Connie's mental view, both familiar, one _impressive_ , if looking more conflicted than usual. Steven, riding on Wolfback, came galloping over. His hair was an unruly mess, windswept and absent a hair tie, and he was wearing both the breastplate of his armor and a red sash with the phrase 'Mayoral Aid - Please Do As They Say' repeated across it. For some reason the sleeves of his winter coat were slashed up nearly to shreds and there were vibrant paint splatters on the buckler strapped to his arm.

Also, Wolf had what looked like scraps of metal caught between his teeth... and some inky black stuff around his muzzle in roughly the same pattern of stains as he got when he ate too enthusiastically and ended up wearing half the contents of his food dish.

Connie became tangible in time to receive a Wolf nuzzle to the chest, some of the black stuff getting rubbed on her in the process. She felt a brief flare of heat and a cocktail of negative feelings but then her gemstone lit up brilliantly, the stygian goop drawn to it and destroyed.

Whatever. Wolf being covered in shadow tar was a mystery for future-Connie to worry about. She leaned into the canine's snout and petted yellow head and chin, still giddy from recent events and, most notably, not ending up a pancake.

"Connie?" asked Steven, his voice filled with equal parts incredulity and wonder. "Did you and Miss Jasper just jump out of a spaceship together?"

His voice sent a thrill down Connie and she cannoned into his torso --"Steven!"-- not caring that the breastplate he was wearing made for a less-than-soft snuggle surface.

Like a dam collapsing and releasing a flood, the words started to pour from Connie and they just kept coming, a rapid-fire torrent while she clutched tightly to Steven's armored torso. "We did, sorta, and I was in space and Lapis fought Rose-" --"Connie?"-- "-and Peridot and I rescued Jasper and Bismuth and stormed the bridge of the ship-" --"Hey, uh, Connie?"-- "-and it was a huge mess and we barely survived and I'm so glad to back and-"

"Connie!" exclaimed Steven and Jasper together, stunning the girl into silence, the Quartz having strode out of the surf with water streaming off her.

For some reason everything looked weirdly pink-tinted.

Following Steven's pointed finger, Connie saw a pink blot piercing the cloud cover and rapidly growing larger. It was broken up in places, a great trail of smoke streaming after it, but after the initial _'What the heck?'_ Connie recognized it as the handship plummeting to Earth, gravity doing the work Lapis' wings had done for her.

Was it going to hit Beach City? Was it somehow being steered in its descent? Would it detonate on impact? Would the Beach House survive? Would the _temple_ survive? _Would they survive?!_

All these thoughts flashed through Connie's mind in an instant, but what she said, eyes going wide as saucers, was, "OH SHIP!"

Steven hauled Connie onto Wolf's back, the hound barking a swirling portal into being maybe thirty feet down the beach. Jasper lunged forward, becoming a orange-and-white blur, spindashing into the vortex only a half-second before Wolf himself dove through, Quartz, human, hybrid, and hound hurtling through a kaleidoscopic tunnel of light.

They emerged on a beach somewhere, Jasper and Wolf both screeching to a halt with great sprays of sand, Connie and Steven struggling to stay in the metaphorical saddle.

Wolf had portal'd them to a stretch of beach on the far side of the bay. While Connie's eyes were locked on the plummeting pink comet, Steven saw something and fished his scouter out of his pocket. "Lapis! Miss Peridot! Hey! We're down here!" He raised an arm and waved.

Following his gaze, Connie could see a faint blue-and-green dot circling over the choppy ocean. She was impressed both by Steven spotting them as well as the range on his scouter. Steven talked the pair over, with Connie providing the occasional spray of sparks as a beacon.

Lapis, wearing Connie's winter coat like a bandoleer, flew in with Peridot in a bridal carry. The green gem wriggled out of her grip from probably eight feet in the air and belly-flopped on the beach below, churning sand as she half-ran, half-sprinted on all fours in her haste to reach them.

"CO-O-ONNIE!" screamed the gem, her voice interrupted by sobs. Connie had just managed to dismount Wolf in time to be tackled to the ground by a weeping green missile propelled by incredulous relief.

The tearful reunion was interrupted, however, with a blinding bright flash and, a beat later, a crash louder than thunder.

A cloud of green and pink fire rose from the impact, the landscape lighting up in surreal colors for a long second. Ejecta was thrown skyward, Connie summoning a quartet of large force fields angled overhead to shield the group. There were larger splashes here and there in the ocean and a sound like a scattering of small hail hitting the roof across the fields overhead. Something heavy crashed in the near-distance but otherwise there was silence.

The temple’s silhouette still stood but the lighthouse atop the cliff had been blown down, the first floor and a shattered remnant of the second all that remained.

The eerie pink lighting subsided and dusk returned, the world dimming to normal. Connie, sitting up with Peridot still clutching her, shivered, the November chill catching up with her as her adrenaline high waned. Lapis winged over and draped Connie's winter coat over her shoulders, Bismuth's gemstone kept in one blue hand and a green spindle in the other.

“So… did you guys win?” asked Steven after several long seconds.

Connie, Lapis, and Peridot all exchanged looks, none sure enough to pass verdict.

Then, effecting an English accent that sounded completely bizarre coming from the gruff gem, Jasper pulled a Monty Python quote used often at the _Lutes and Loot_ table. "Alright, we'll call it a draw."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's the scene Jasper is quoting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6frs86Szk_0), for clarity.
> 
> The model for Lapis was drawn by MjStudioArts. The in-chapter art was created by BurdenKing.
> 
> Stay tuned for a bevy of epilogues (plus whatever you'd call Steven's concurrent adventure with Wolf... a prologue? An interlogue?) next week on Wednesday, June 26th for the final chapters of _The Return_.
> 
> We finally get to see the temple of Connie Swap. Hi Selenite! That's one of those things, hidden in plain sight, that astute readers have been asking about in the comments and Discord for some time now. My co-creators and I were holding off for this episode to finally reveal the Citrine-Jasper-Lapis fusion that holds the Beach House in Connie Swap. Here's a model MJ drew back in November 2017:  
> 
> 
> I also get to share with you this model of Selenite herself, drawn by MJ back in July 2017:  
> 
> 
> It bears mentioning that Jasper's new look was jointly designed by MJ and BurdenKing, though it was MJ who drew it up. Whereas Lapis' new look borrows elements of Citrine's attire (namely the star and the harem pants), Jasper's new look has ditched a lot of the Citrine-inspired elements for ones that are all Jasper's own. And, yes, the coloration of Jasper's corruption marks have changed and, no, that's not just artistic license. The other characters will probably remark on it when things settle down enough.  
> 
> 
> Connie's ultimate skydive was an idea we've had in mind for a looong time. Back in February 2017 (so, around when Ep2 was ending), MJ made the following drawing on a lark:  
>   
> BurdenKing and I loved it and that led to a line of discussion about what if CS!Connie were put in a situation similar to canon!Steven in _Bubbled_. This was around the time we were still hashing out the powers Connie would eventually unlock and that conversation was where we first got the idea of Connie's CP power turning her insubstantial. Eventually the ultimate skydive got incorporated into our idea for _The Return_ but had MJ not drawn that picture, Connie might not have gotten that facet to one of her showier powers at all. And since I'm showing off Connie's 'space hair' pic, here's another, related picture MJ did:  
> 
> 
> Last but absolutely not least, I, br42, wanted to gush a bit about Connie's observation about Lapis' new 'scape looking like a piece of porcelain with the cracks glued together with gold. That art/practice is known as [Kintsugi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi) and it can look like this:  
>   
> It is described as a craft and a philosophy, the latter of which...
>
>> As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
> 
> Isn't that just a perfect metaphor for Lapis?! I certainly thought so when I was first introduced to both the concept and the metaphor in the fic [Putting Yourself Back Together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702010/chapters/26349204), written by the oh-so-talented [SilverScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverScribe/pseuds/SilverScribe), who you may also recognize from some sterling omakes gracing the Omake Collection. _PYBT_ is the second fic in a three-fic series called [Changing Tides](https://archiveofourown.org/series/790980), with the following description:
>
>> A collection of stories chronicling Lapis Lazuli's healing process from her past traumas. Also lots of fluff. And some angst. :)
> 
> It's a great series from a great author and I've been waiting two years to ~~shamelessly plagiarize~~ pay homage to it. I strongly encourage you to check it out if you haven't already. 


	7. Steven Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: _Returning Without Leaving._

_* StUn - 05:41pm | My parents r telling me 2 pack but ill be right there!_  
_* CoMa - 05:42pm | Your parents are evacuating?_

_* StUn - 05:45pm | Sry. Things r not good here. Mad mom sad dad. Every1 is evacuating. Half the town is riding in dads tour bus._

_* StUn - 05:48pm | Momdad not letting me leave. Mayor showed up. Used that to go hide in parents bathroom upstairs. Can u send wolf? Its a big bathroom lots of room for wolf 2 howl into._  
_* CoMa - 05:48pm | You're not going with your parents??_  
_* StUn - 05:49pm | What! Of course not Im gonna help u!_  
_* CoMa - 05:49pm | ..._  
_* StUn - 05:49pm | No. No dots_  
_* CoMa - 05:50pm | Yes dots.. I think you should go with your parents._  
_* StUn - 05:50pm | I have 2 be there! We r partners!_  
_* CoMa - 05:51pm | This is different. These aren't corrupted gems, Steven._  
_* CoMa - 05:51pm | They're gem gems! Like Peridot and Jasper._  
_* CoMa - 05:52pm | They might not want to kill us in the fight because we're gems._  
_* CoMa - 05:53pm | They might want to capture us if we lose. But they don't care about humans, Steven._  
_* CoMa - 05:53pm | Your not a person to them, just an animal or an infestation._  
_* CoMa - 05:54pm | They'll kill you._  
_* CoMa - 05:54pm | I can't let that happen. Please go. I love you. Please go._

 _* StUn - 06:01pm | Connie, this is Greg._  
_* StUn - 06:01pm | Thank you._  
_* StUn has left the conversation *_

Steven sat on the bus and stared at his phone feeling very Sniffling Croissant just then. He'd retreated from Peedee and Jeff's company with the excuse that Lion --deeply unhappy at being confined to a carrier and every so often yowling that fact to the world-- needed comforting, grabbing a half-full box of the mayor's evacuation donuts as he went.

A tummy full of donuts and sadness was better than just sadness.

So he sat there, petting Lion and rereading his phone and eventually he ran out of donuts and he felt kind of queasy and it was noisy on the bus with so many people on it and Steven just wanted to turn off his ears and crawl into his Blanket Fortress of Solitude and cry until he fell asleep.

Mom was doing that thing where she gave him space but never really stopped watching him --she'd been really upset when he'd slipped away to hide in the master bathroom and text Connie for Wolf-support-- and Dad was focused on driving, the bus being near the front of a long caravan of evacuating Beach City people. Lion felt bad for Steven but he also felt bad for himself so the pettings were a bit heavier on the warning scratches than Steven really wanted.

 _Connie said she loves me,_ a part of Steven said, trying to cheer himself up, to see the good. And it was good: it gave him a fluttery feeling all over when he focused on just that sentence from the texts.

Buuut...

_She also wouldn't let me help her and she could be in trouble and even Citrine needed a shieldbearer and when Connie and I are married and she's President of Space and I'm looking after our five kids and I call her up to tell her 'I love you' and she says, 'I love you too,' I'll always remember that she first said that when she left to save the world without me and-_

"Ow!" Steven raised his finger to his mouth and sucked on the scratch, looking down at Lion both hurt and offended. Then his expression softened. "You were trying to keep me from getting all icky-fied, weren't you? Cats can sense those things." He gave Lion an appreciative tummy scratch.

His finger throbbed in his mouth. "Though maybe try and be a little gentler next time... Please?" he added.

There were gasps and the bus rocked a little as people tried to look through the windows on one side, Dad calling back with an uneasy chuckle, "Whoa. Easy back there! Buses and mosh pits don't mix; I learned that the hard way one time."

Steven didn't think anyone was really paying attention, though, because out one side you could see a giant, pink robot hand getting shot by a hojillion lasers. "Wow," said Steven, jaw dropping lower and lower as the blasting continued.

Then the shooting stopped and the giant hand was unhurt and Jeff said, "Yeah, that never works in anime either," and Steven found himself nodding in agreement. He wanted to put on his scouter and listen in on the gems to hear how things were going but, with a nasty twist in his tummy, he remembered that the scouter only worked when he was with Connie since it was powered by her invisible energy aura superpower.

Then the ocean turned into a giant hand and tried to punch the ship but it melted instead and then the ocean turned into a hundred giant hands and those didn't work either and there was this big wind that rocked the bus and several people screamed, which was scary because Beach City people didn't normally scream because screaming meant you had less oxygen for running away and it attracted monsters' attention and they taught you not to do that in class.

Then another water hand came up and covered the robot hand with explosions somehow and Steven cheered and so did others when part of the pink ring finger fell off.

When the robot hand shot a super-giant laser at the temple, Steven picked up Lion, carrier and all, and held it to his chest and it wasn't until Lion started yowling that he realized he had started to kind of crush it even though it was one of those tough plastic-and-metal carriers and maybe he'd made more progress with his working out with Jasper than he thought and then the laser got bounced back at the ship and Steven went, "Woo! Tiger's Eye!" and no one understood why but he was too happy to care.

Then the robot hand started to shoot toward the town and no one said anything, not even Lion, and it didn't look like anything had exploded when it stopped except maybe the ocean but still Steven was pretty sure he was one gasp away from throwing up seven or more donuts and that he wasn't the only one on the bus who felt like that.

Finally the hand got close to the beach in front of the temple and it occurred to Steven just then that if he got off the bus and started running for the temple, no one would try and stop him. Well, Mom would, and she had that unstoppable mom thing going on, but Steven _had_ been doing superhero training for a while now and Mom would talk about how she couldn’t work outside all day like she used to and he was pretty sure she’d eaten as many donuts as he had because that’s what his family did when stuff got icky. So Steven set down Lion, shouldered his backpack --which had his shield and some of his armor stuffed at the bottom of a bunch of shirts and underpants-- and started to slowly head down the aisle telling himself that he was just going to go sit with Jeff and Peedee near the back _really loudly_ in his thoughts as if to try and confuse that Mom-telepathy thing Mom sometimes had but really he was looking at the emergency door in the back.

People were talking and milling about but Mom's, "Steven?" was so loud in Steven's ears he was convinced for a split-second that Miss Peridot had given Mom a scouter all her own. Old habits coming to the fore, Steven mentally shouted, _'Sorry Mom, my ears are turned off. Oops,'_ and continued to work his way toward the back of the bus. It wasn't until he reached the emergency door that he remembered that excuse had vanished in a flash of yellow light back when his life both changed completely and kinda didn't (but kinda really did) six months ago.

Turning back, Steven saw his mom standing up and looking directly at him. He signed back, "[Sorry Mom. Be back later,]" then pulled the handle on the emergency exit, pushed the door open, and hopped to the pavement below. Mister Smiley eyed him warily from the too-small car the broad-shouldered business owner had squeezed into, watching as Steven jogged hurriedly back through the caravan.

Just as Steven had gotten about three car-lengths back along the narrow road out of town he heard "Steven!" shouted behind him, his feet suddenly moving faster as he sprinted down the roadside. He'd made it to about the midpoint of the caravan, the donuts in his tummy a little unhappy about the trip so far, when there was a distant howl, a flash of light, and then Wolf rocketed out of a portal, almost bowling Steven off the side of the road.

"Wolf!" Steven threw his arms around the magic canine's flank, then remembered he was about twenty seconds away from getting super-mega-grounded and climbed up onto Wolf's back. "Come on! Let's go help Connie and the gems!"

There was a noise from behind that might have been shouted mom-wrath but Steven actually couldn't hear it this time because of the 'howl' half of 'howl portal.' There was a crazy-banana tunnel that looked like if M.C. Escher had designed the Rainbow Road level of _Mario Kart_ and then they were back outside, the world blurring past as...

Mayor Dewey's mayor van was coming slowly up the road, the speakers blaring 'Evac~uate~ Evac~uate~' as it went. Just behind that was a small red pickup truck pulling a large boat, Yellowtail and Vidalia visible in the front seat while Onion (wearing goggles and what Steven really hoped was a paintball gun) patrolled the bed of the pickup truck. Dad's bus was visible a little further down the trail of cars.

"Wolf? We're at the front of the caravan." Steven looked around uncertainly. "Is Connie over here somewhere?" There were flashes of light over by that pink hand-spaceship by the beach so he'd really assumed everyone was over there.

Wolf craned his neck around as much as he could and gave Steven big, worried doggy eyes.

"You can't go there?" hazarded Steven, hoping his Wolf-whisperer skills hadn't gotten too rusty.

Wolf nodded, head hanging low and looking, well, _hangdog;_ Steven finally understanding how that word meant what it meant.

Tossing shirts and boxers onto the roadside, Steven dug his shield and the chest piece of his armor out of his pack, strapping the former into place and wriggling the latter on over the top of his winter coat. Still trying to get his left arm through the breastplate arm hole, he stammered out, "But- Connie- Are they going to be okay?"

There was a flash in the distance and it looked like there was some sort of fire burning beneath the robot hand. Unless that was a beach bonfire for celebrating peace among worlds and roasting marshmallows --which seemed kinda unlikely-- then they were still being invaded and Steven was needed elsewhere.

"Could you maybe drop me off nearby? Like behind the Big Do-"

Steven's request was interrupted by a horn honk, the screech of tires, and a chittering noise so high-pitched he didn't so much hear it as notice his ears were deeply unhappy about something in that direction.

"Muh! Muh muh muh! Muh muh muh muh muh MUHMUH muh!" shouted Yellowtail, Steven wincing at the salty language. The fisherman had swerved because a thick cluster of tiny forms were swarming the windows of his truck. Unable to see properly, he'd slammed on the brakes causing the boat he was towing to jackknife across the entire road.

Onion was busy from the back of the truck, the paintball gun slung over his back so he could swing a tire iron around two-handed.

"Oh no! Crystal bats!" exclaimed Steven. "Wolf, the caravan can't get away with Yellowtail’s fat boat in the way!" He turned and looked in the direction of the robot hand, then saw the long stretch of Beach City people all trying to get to safety, cars and trucks and the bus all slowed to a halt.

"Come on, boy," he said a touch resigned. "Let's go save everyone from the bats-" There was the sound of a tire iron staving in the rear window of a pickup truck. "-or save the bats from Onion."

The problem wasn't poofing the bats: Wolf could probably poof most of them with a single super-bark. No, the problem was not hurting Yellowtail's truck too much in the process. As they got closer Steven noticed that high-pitched noise more and more, going so far as to retrieve the pair of ear plugs he kept in his pocket and fitting them into place. There was glass scattered across the road from Onion's earlier bat-batting and more honking and angry language from Yellowtail and Aunt Vidalia within the truck itself.

Steven dismounted from the hound, Wolf craning his head around and looking to Steven for guidance... or a second set of super-sized ear plugs. Steven, still wincing from the noise, shrugged. "I don't suppose you speak 'squeak' do you?" he asked, pulling the winter coat's thick hood tight over his head. 

It was really cold out once you got away from Wolf, the pooch like a furry, four-legged, mobile heater.

Wolf flattened his ears a little in reply.

Onion, meanwhile, was dancing around the pickup bed like a little dervish, doing slightly more damage to the bats than the truck. Probably. When one of the bats tried to fly at him, he jumped back, unslung his paintball gun, and double-tapped it with first yellow and then red splotches, sending the crystal vermin falling with gummed up wings to the ground below. Wolf, not willing to eat a paint-coated tidbit, crushed it with his paw, a tiny puff of smoke escaping.

With a 'here goes nothing' shrug, Steven reached down and picked up a piece of glass off the road then brought it up to the shield strapped to his arm. _It’s supposed to be made out of super-duper metal so this shouldn't hurt it, right?_ Just to be on the safe side, he made sure not to scratch the yellow lotus decorating it.

Scratching glass to metal, the effect was immediate, the swarm of bats rising in a thick cloud off the truck, writhing midair, then turning to swarm at Steven instead: apparently 'scritch scratch-scratch scritch' was something very rude in bat-speak.

Steven, a stalwart Crystal Gem-in-training, ran in tight circles, flailing and screaming. However, he kept the glass-on-metal scraping going as he did, hearing Jasper's voice in his head drilling him on sticking to the objective even during battlefield chaos. Fortunately, the crystal bats mainly focused on the parts of him near the noise --his body, arms, and fingers-- which were protected by his armor or thick winter coat or gloves.

There was a howl, Steven felt the ground stop being ground, then he fell down through a rainbow Escher tunnel and back out, landing on the ground about five feet away from where the angry bat swarm was confused about the general lack of a Steven to gnaw on. These were poofed all at once by a _really_ loud super-bark, but several had made the trip with Steven and were still angrily gnashing and flapping at sleeve and shield. These Steven poofed himself, trying to be calm and methodical like Jasper had taught him, and feeling extra proud when he managed to catch Onion's covering fire on the small metal plate of his buckler.

"Muh, Muhmuh!" cheered Yellowtail out the rolled-down window of his truck, a beat later adding, "Muh, muh Muh muhmuh."

"You're welcome," answered the teen happily, picking idly at the tatters of his winter sleeves. Wolf barked, which Steven translated as, "Wolf says 'you're welcome' too."

The mayor had pulled his van over to the side of the road, his guards hopping out, one behind and one in front of Yellowtail's truck to guide the fisherman out of the jackknife his truck had gotten stuck in. Meanwhile, the mayor himself walked over saying, "Steven, my boy! Good work. I'm glad those magic ladies sent some help; it really helps improve the optics on this whole space invasion."

"Oh, uh, well-" started Steven but the mayor kept talking, the official's eyes drifting out over the vehicular logjam.

"Trust me, without some show of goodwill from the Crystalline Gems, people aren't going to remember that they got saved from a giant hand or that their mayor had already given out damage reimbursement forms and donuts. No, they're going to remember how they got stuck behind a boat while Lupus made the ocean play pattycake." He clapped a hand on Steven's (puffy but slightly shredded) shoulder. "Here, take this and wear it proudly," and he draped a long, red sash around Steven. "That way the voting public know their duly elected mayor is helping too."

Steven twisted the sash around so he could read the front. 'Mayoral Aid - Please Do As They Say,' it read. He turned to look and saw the robot hand beginning to rotate and rise skyward, the open palm closing into a fist. He _really_ hoped that everything was okay over there, his tummy twisting around with doubts and dismay. Looking back at the mayor, Steven said, "Can the mayor's office get me un-super-mega-grounded if I keep helping?"

Mayor Dewey's eyebrows rose slightly, the ruddy man's facing becoming appraising. "You want a little quid pro quo, Universe?" he asked, sounding vaguely impressed. "If you and Woofer do a good job, I'll make sure you get a complete mayoral pardon when this is all over."

"And that’ll help?" asked Steven.

The mayor shrugged. "It might. Suitcase Sam's still a free man, after all."

Steven didn't know what to make of that last part but, if it kept people from later getting mad at the gems then he was still doing Crystal Gem business even if it wasn't, like, _for-real_ Crystal Gem business. Feeling a little glum and trying not to show it, Steven nodded, shaking the mayor's hand.

As he turned to walk back to Wolf, the mayor called after him, shouting, "And don't let Vidalia's kid get that sash! My campaign barely survived the last time that happened!"

* * *

There were more monster people in the area than Steven had realized. Maybe seeing that robot hand in the sky had made them get agitated. Were they trying to escape Homeworld too? Were they trying to help Homeworld reinvade? Some of the monster people had been working for the Diamonds when they'd heard the corruption song, Steven reminded himself.

Whatever the case, Steven and Wolf had been surprisingly busy over the last hour or so escorting the caravan away from Beach City.

The problem now wasn't the monster people, though, it was the bus.

A big Quartz bear-dog-person had run across the road and kind of shoulder-checked the bus, causing it to veer just off the road. Because the ditch was particularly deep, the front wheels weren't actually touching the ground, the bottom of the bus' front resting on the ground like Lion taking a nap. And like a napping Lion, the bus refused to budge when Dad tried to reverse out.

Given that the bus was transporting nearly half the town, the caravan had ground to a halt while they tried to deal with this.

"Sorry, Shtu-ball, but the jack I've got won't lift _that_ up." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's for flat tires, not monster road rage," and he offered a weak chuckle.

From up in the bus, Mom was glaring at Steven while the mayor, again, spoke with her with a smile that failed to reach his eyes. Steven swallowed and hustled back over to Wolf.

"Hey, boy. I-" Steven paused because Wolf winced. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. Looking around conspiratorially, Steven leaned in and asked, "Is it Connie again?"

Wolf's muzzle fell before nudging Steven, the hound seeking solace in chin scratches.

Steven felt his chest tighten with a lot of emotions just then. Whatever Connie was doing, she really wanted Wolf around but Wolf had some super important reason why he couldn't go there. _At least she wants him there,_ a corner of Steven thought and he tried to shush himself after thinking it.

Rallying, Steven said, "I spoke with the mayor earlier and he said that we're nearly to that rest stop with the barbecue restaurant. He said that ‘brisket plays well with the Joe Six-pack demographic’ and I don't really know what that means, but I'm pretty sure if we can get Dad's bus unstuck then I can get him to buy you a pork roast or extra-long sausage link."

That seemed to help perk the hound back up, and Steven wouldn't have minded something to eat besides donuts either.

Hound and teen returned to inspect the stuck bus.

"I don't think a portal's a good idea," mused Steven, tapping his chin in thought. "Could you super-bark it out of the ditch?" he asked.

Wolf panted happily.

"Uh, without breaking all the windows?"

Wolf stopped panting, chin lowering a little.

Running a gloved hand over one of the more shredded (and therefore colder) parts of his sleeves, Steven pondered things a little longer. "I don't suppose you could just push it back up onto the road, could you?"

Wolf was, after all, a giant, magical super-dog.

Wolf cocked his head to the side, looking at the bus appraisingly. He licked his chops, padding to the left and then to the right as if estimating the force involved. Then he returned to Steven and gave a doggy nod but there was a worried look in his eyes.

"You can do it," guessed Steven, "but there's a problem?"

Another nod. Then Wolf reached out and pawed at the buckler on Steven's wrist. A bright splash of pink paint was visible over the yellow lotus, the dominant splotch from Onion's earlier anti-bat paintball barrage. Steven blinked and Wolf pawed the splotch a second time.

"I... I don't know what that means," said Steven after a few more seconds of magical animal guesswork.

Wolf huffed and then lowered himself for Steven to climb up. Steven guessed he would just have to hang on and find out for himself.

Calling back to his dad, he said, "Wolf's gonna push the bus back onto the road. You should make sure no one's in the bathroom and that everyone's buckled in."

Dad was already jogging back to the bus. "Okay, Shtu-ball. I'll give you a wave when we're ready."

Steven idly petted Wolf's flank while they waited, the winter cold not nearly so bad on Wolfback. It was a bit like riding around in the Pizzamobile with the top down; the other day Jenny swore that the hot air from the heater sort of rolled up and over you while cold air made your hair flap around, and she'd been completely right when Steven had tagged along with her on some deliveries around town for the fun of it.

Dad waved.

"Alright, Wolf. Ready when you are," and Steven gave him a final ear scratch for good luck.

Wolf padded off the road, clearing the deep ditch, and rounding on the bus. He took a deep breath in and out then strode forward. Dad, sitting in the driver's seat, was only a little higher off the ground than Steven was on Wolf's back, father and son exchanging quick, nervous waves.

Wolf dropped his head down so that he was pushing with the flat of his noggin against the bus. He heaved, Steven feeling mighty muscles rippling under him. There was a strain from the bus as metal and pavement ground against one another and then the ground under one of Wolf's paws gave and the large hound had to struggle not to topple over.

Steven could see that the bus had shifted an inch or two.

Wolf padded back a few paces, shook his shoulders, snuffled over the ground, then squared back off against the bus. He heaved a second time, a metal-on-asphalt noise grinding out, the bus' suspension creaking as it was shifted, bit-by-bit. But there must have been something snagged because after some real progress the metal strain sounds increased and the bus refused to budge.

_Does Wolf look more... yellow than normal?_

Steven didn't have much time to ponder this because, with a deep growl at the back of his throat, Wolf rushed forward, shoulder-checking the bus like the Quartz monster-person had. So yellow he was almost glowing, Wolf heaved against the bus again, something cracking in the asphalt below before he relented, retreating a few steps.

Steven realized he was sweating and pulled back his hood. A part of him observed that Wolf was the one doing all the work, that even as a second-rate Crystal Gem he was at sub-mascot levels. No wonder Connie had left without him: he was crumby and- and sweaty, and his shield and scouter didn't even work without her but she could still be awesome without him and-

The world did something weird just then because Steven and Wolf didn't so much approach the bus as suddenly _be_ next to the bus, distance traveled in a flicker like a glitching video game. Wolf wasn't glowing but the sheer yellowness of his fur made Steven’s eyes water. The bus, meanwhile, shuddered and lurched, something in the road below complaining loudly. With a growl more felt than heard, Wolf flicker-moved so that he now had his jaws hooked around the bus' front bumper and he heaved, Steven feeling hot and scared and full of sucky suckitude just then.

It turned out that in the past the road had eroded away some, exposing just the end of a piece of rebar. This had gotten hooked on the bus' frame, which was why Wolf had had such a hard time getting it shoved free. And Steven learned this when Wolf, about to reach Lisa Frank-levels of neon yellow, hauled the bus free in his jaws, the rebar ripping up through the asphalt before being sheared off by raw, lupine force.

The bus landed on the road, a score of _Whoa!_ s from the people inside announcing the drop, and then the world flicker-shifted again with Steven and a panting Wolf standing in the middle of the road, fur shifting neon yellow to yellow to kind of a light-orange, part of it even dimming to a kind of pinkish color.

And if Steven weren't such a doof he'd probably know what to do right now but he didn't and no one cared anyway and then Steven was screaming and hanging on for dear life as Wolf howled a portal into being and lunged through it.

Escher Road passed in a rainbow blur, Steven feeling like he'd taken last place, and then they were somewhere at night but it was lit by a brilliant moon and there were geodes and shadowy figures shifting around and Wolf was chasing them and, judging from noises, eating them.

After the tenth or so shadow trickster had gotten, uh, Wolfed down, Wolf ran to a stream adjacent to a waterfall that Steven remembered camping out near with Connie back when she'd pitied him enough to hang out with him and Wolf thirstily drank and drank and drank and he didn't seem so hot or not-yellow anymore and then he rolled to one side to buck Steven off but kind of gently and he started licking Steven with big, wet doggy kisses upside the face and Steven struggled but after a second Steven was giggling and trying to fend him off, squealing, "Wooolf!" between peals of laughter.

Steven sat there and mopped the doggy slobber off his face feeling thoroughly un-bad vibe-ified while Wolf turned and drank a little more from the moonlit stream. "Thanks Wolf.” More mopping because, even for regular dogs there was no such thing as a little doggy slobber.

“So are you powered by trickster gunk,” asked the teen eventually, “or is it more like without enough of it you lose control of your powers?"

Wolf gave Steven an innocent look and a sneeze before turning back to the stream.

Another idea occurred to Steven, the teen looking around. "Also, why are there any tricksters at all? Connie created them here a month ago so they should have evaporated or something by now."

Then Wolf perked up, large head raising skyward, water dripping from the fur around his muzzle.

"Is it Connie?!" Steven rose from where he'd flopped down during the doggy kisses treatment and jogged over to climb back on Wolf's back.

Wolf stared at the stars for another second then howled a portal open. However, unlike the usual swirling vortex waiting for Wolf and passengers to dive in, the air made a whooshing sound roaring past and Steven felt a pull like a giant vacuum cleaner trying to suck him in. With a yelp, Wolf ended the portal, looking up at the sky and then back at Steven.

"Not that portal," said Steven, shaken, his hair a riot and absent one of his special birthday hair ties that was now, he was pretty sure, floating around somewhere in space.

Wolf studied the sky for a couple more seconds before jerking his head in one direction, as if catching a scent on the air. Wolf howled another portal into existence --this one _not_ trying to suck them into space-- and the pair dove through.

They emerged on the beach in front of the temple, but a bunch of sand was burned black and another place had what looked like a small canal lined with glass and there were pieces of broken light cannons lying around. Then the sky started turning pink again and there were twin blurs of motion: one, a see-through Connie that Steven's eye had a hard time following, and the other was Jasper about to deliver the mother of all cannonball splashes.

"Let's go!" shouted Steven, Wolf already running.

A beat later Steven added, "And I promise I'll get you that barbecue when we're all done."

Wolf ran faster.


	8. P2 Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After you finish reading this chapter, there is a related omake story you might want to check out:  
> [Gravity Swap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/47717254) by [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- P2 and Amethyst make a detour to visit this 'Mystery Shack' P2 is so curious about.

The locational transponder in the escape pod had been damaged and she wasn't receiving any further data (global positioning data or otherwise) from the warship, which was why Peridot Facet-2B2Y Cut-5XG was staring up at the night sky, comparing visual data against her star charts. It was for that reason and _not_ because there was a peculiar, aesthetic appeal to the stars' faint twinkling as a result of atmospheric interference.

Amethyst Facet-5 Cut-8XM had, after a brief but energetic question-and-answer session, shifted into an organic facsimile apparently called an 'owl' and flown into the snow-covered forest they'd landed within to make sure their perimeter was absent any hostile rebel presence or 'camper swag.'

The latter term Peridot had taken as an intellectual challenge to deduce the meaning of. She was sixty-eight-point-two percent confident it was a by-product of some arboreal organic such as a 'bear' or 'manatee'.

Deductive side-tasks notwithstanding, Peridot was trying to make the star field comparison to ascertain their latitude. Longitude would prove trickier but she'd ensured they'd landed on the same continent as the Prime Kindergarten, which narrowed the variation range considerably.

By the time Amethyst returned, Peridot had a high confidence they were at forty-three-point-one degrees north (finer calculation was not currently possible with the tools at hand) and _was_ further observing the stars because there was a peculiar, aesthetic appeal to the stars' faint twinkling as a result of atmospheric interference.

Amethyst reverted to her base form, walking over to the escape pod and scooping a handful of the shock absorbing fluid still trapped in the bowl of the craft into her mouth, having earlier described it as 'tangy.' She swished and spat the fluid, then said, "Man, I missed this place. Those zooman fruits are good and all, but I've been craving a crunchy pine cone for weeks." She shapeshifted a digit into a fine, pick-like implement and was prying small, dark kernels from her teeth and then tossing them back in her mouth. "Hey Peridude,” she greeted. “What are you doing?"

"I have used the celestial bodies overhead to ascertain our latitude and am now... looking at them." She paused for a second longer, recording footage via her visor before turning to face the Era-1 Quartz directly. She smiled. "And now I am ready to receive your report."

Amethyst shrugged. "Nothing much to report. I scared a renard who thought I might be tasty and I'm pretty sure one of my caves is thattaway." She pointed then sauntered over, flopping down in the snow to stare upward alongside Peridot. "Yeah, those things are pretty. I tried flying up to them a couple of times before Pearl actually took me to them." Her expression shifted from one wistfulness to bitterness. "Then Rose took her away."

Ah, yes. Amethyst's acrimony toward Rose. Given the hostility between her mission-supervisor and her Quartz informant/escort, Peridot would have to employ tact to prevent dissension and unproductivity.

"The Pearl in question, even second-hand, was too fancy for a non-exemplary member of the warrior caste to own." She sat down beside the Quartz. "Rose Quartz only possesses her because she is much, much more highly-ranked and acclaimed than you are," explained Peridot with comforting cheer.

For some reason this did not produce the desired rousing effect, Amethyst bringing her hands up to her face and flopping backwards into the snow with an 'Ugh!'

Casting about for a rhetorical alternative, Peridot said in a hopeful tone, "I believe you mentioned a proximal, sheltered resource cache."

Amethyst sniffed, blinked her visible eye, then pushed herself upright, saying, "I doubt it, but there is one of my caves nearby."

"Excellent," and Peridot rose to her gravity connectors, helping Amethyst upright as well. "As you and the Pearl were able to fashion an interstellar vessel from these collections, I am certain there will be many helpful items therein to help expedite the completion of our mission!"

"Yeah!" exclaimed Amethyst. Then she paused. "Wait, you mean Rose's mission? Because that belette can go..." and the Quartz went on to describe, at length, a sequence involving Rose Quartz and her notorious sword that was anatomically improbable even when you allowed for judicious shapeshifting.

Peridot’s innate translation ability informed her ‘belette’ meant ‘weasel’ but sadly could not further contextualize. A quandary she noted in her records for another time

The mottled gem considered her situation carefully. While Amethyst was no rebel, she was an exemplar of the Quartzine tendency toward emotional reasoning. Perhaps if Peridot found a way to make the progression of their mission objectives more immediately and tangibly rewarding, it would maintain focus and morale. That and distancing Rose Quartz' name from their shared objective.

"You know, Amethyst, my mission involving the Earth's primary Kindergarten was assigned to me many cycles before Rose Quartz became attached." She sent her floating fingers out to brush away the snow clinging to her form, adding a queued command for them to do the same for Amethyst afterward. "In helping me fulfill that objective, you'll be helping me first and foremost, and Rose Quartz secondarily at best."

Amethyst watched the floating fingers rove over her compact form with a degree of wonder that Peridot found amusing. Then the Quartz said, "Huh? Oh, yeah, Rose horned in on your job just like she did with Pearl. Well, we'll show her! We'll do your kinder-thingy without her!" Amethyst blew a raspberry. Then she gave Peridot a sly look. "Hey, if we finish this mission, would it give moi some of that acclaim stuff you were talking about earlier?"

Peridot nodded. "Oh yes. This is an important mission ordered by-" and Peridot's smile widened, her voice growing reverent, "-Yellow Diamond herself. The efficient completion of this task can only improve our standing."

The Quartz had a distant look followed by a resolved expression. "Bon. Let's do this." She then transformed into a facsimile of a terrestrial aircraft with a prominent rotor.

Peridot was stunned by the shapeshifting acumen on display. She had interacted with Amethyst regularly enough at the station --often in an effort to obscure her activities from Holly Blue Agate, who had clashed with Amethyst frequently since she'd joined the station's Quartz custodial detail-- and seen many casual displays of that Era-1 staple power. But this wasn't merely a flawless reproduction of Holly Blue Agate for purposes of satire or the assuming of Earth shapes for the amusement of the zooman population. This was shapeshifting taken to a class all its own.

Amethyst's eyes, visible in the front of the vehicle, cast about anxiously. "Yo, Peridude, what are you staring at? Did I step in merde or something?" and she accelerated the rotors, flying up a little to glance underneath, proving that the form was completely functional.

"Wow!" exclaimed Peridot. "I had no idea you were capable of such feats. I had no idea _any gem_ was! I was worried your conventional flight forms would be unable to keep pace with my own enhancer-assisted flight but those concerns have proven baseless!" As she cheered, she seized the escape pod with her right enhancer’s tractor beam; the device could provide useful salvage, especially on this technologically backwards planet.

Amethyst landed, a surprised grin crossing her altered features. "You think this is cool? Oh man, just wait until I show you all the other cool stuff I know about!"

Floating fingers on Peridot's left limb enhancer whirring to provide lift, the two of them rose into the night air and began moving west-south-west. Wind -- _WIND!_ Such a fascinating phenomenon-- was roaring past them. Seeing a useful motivational angle, Peridot shouted over the onrushing air currents, "Provided we're able to stay at or ahead of schedule, I think embarking on diverting side-excursions would be permitted."

"Sweet!" exclaimed Amethyst, grinning landing skid to landing skid and flying faster. "First thing we're doing at the cave is taking a nap. Naps are géniale and you Homeworld gals don't know what you're missing out on. Next, there's a town kinda close and I'm stealing us some Slurpees. Slurpees are pretty much the best thing humans have ever made. Then we're going to swipe some trash can lids and find ourselves a nice glacier to go sledding down."

Peridot was thoughtful for a moment. "Is the Mystery Shack a destination we could visit? There was a report adhered to the Galaxy Warp concerning it and I've been curious about it ever since."

Amethyst chuckled, form rocking excitedly side to side. "Never heard of it, but we'll find it. Man, this is going to be awesome!"

Peridot smiled. This mission was hardly routine, had, in fact, gone startlingly outside conventional operational bounds, but she was excited. _Especially,_ she mused, _given the limited window remaining for Earth and its associated phenomena to continue existing._


	9. Pearl Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After you finish reading this chapter, there is a related omake story you might want to check out:  
> [Deleted Scenes - Episode 35: The Return](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/46309057) by [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- There's trouble in the bubble as Pearl and her new master make their way down to Earth. An outtake from Ep35Ch9.

Pearl was adrift in both the literal and metaphorical sense. She'd tried to serve Rose to the best of her ability but her concern for Connie had been indirectly responsible for the Crystal Gems escaping and ruining Rose's plans.

If there was a Pearl who had never failed in her service before, Pearl had never met her. Sometimes orders are confused, sometimes the routine goes awry, and sometimes the universe thwarts you with a calamity totally beyond your control. Those were all hurts Pearl was familiar with, ones she had survived and learned to weather even as she worked tirelessly to minimize them happening. But what she was feeling now was a new hurt and _it cut to the core of her being._

Had Pearl been unfaithful in her service, holding someone else's needs above her master's?

Rose had wanted Lapis Lazuli and Connie to share close cells so that the two would have been able to speak freely. Interrogating Connie was something Rose had been... hesitant to attempt. Even giving the order to have Connie brought for a conversation had been difficult for the otherwise indomitable Quartz. Extracting details from Lapis, however, would have been a safer channel, or so Rose said, sounding ideas off of Pearl.

Pearl could have raised her concern about the two being close with the added complication of Connie's need for water; it ran counter to Rose's plans but she wasn't the sort of boorish master who thought a Pearl had nothing of value to say to her owner. Pearl could have given Connie only one bottle at a time. She could have served Connie her nourishment herself to ensure nothing went awry; Pearl had no fondness for handling foodstuff, but the thought of serving something needed to a grateful Connie was something Pearl would very much have enjoyed.

There it was again. Pearl clutched her hands tightly before her, feeling so wayward and full of self-reproach that it made her a little dizzy. Well, that and the lack of a stable reference frame within the spaceborn bubble.

In the book and while readying Amethyst's and her escape, Connie had been a balm, an unalloyed source of hope and satisfaction in a life that had for so long been bereft of both. But now circumstances had changed and Pearl's feelings had failed to keep pace. Oh, it frustrated her so much and _there was nothing in a bubble to tidy or mend!_

Rose sat on the floor of her bubble, looking thoughtful as she examined the pink-tinged planet beyond. Perhaps sensing Pearl's turmoil --she was such an attentive owner and Pearl felt a thrill that was almost indecorous each time she was reminded of that-- Rose beckoned her over. Primly, gracefully, Pearl stepped closer and allowed herself to be guided onto Rose's lap, sinking into a contented haze as the large, powerful, _beautiful_ gem she served held her close and gently caressed her.

A blissful eternity later Pearl became aware that her Rose's chest was moving. There was no air in the bubble so was her Rose attempting to speak via pantomime? She knew Connie and her friend, Steven, had a uniquely human means of doing so. Rose was from Earth, she was very knowledgeable about humans; was this something she knew as well? Would Pearl's owner require her to know this too and be disappointed when she could only bow and apologize wordlessly for her inadequacy?

Leaning back and away from the warmth of Rose's embrace, the earlier calm banished in a wash of ice water-worry, Pearl looked at her owner. Rose was gazing back at her, unworried, eyes half-lidded, disappointment mercifully absent from her expression. Her lips moved soundlessly and she reached out to caress Pearl once more.

With a burst of inspiration, Pearl summoned a tank of pressurized air from her gemstone, long, agile fingers firmly twisting the valve to release the gas into the bubble's interior. She had several more such tanks if needed, packed as a precaution should Connie have-

And suddenly the frustration returned, her thin form twisting with the emotion.

Quietly, because the atmosphere in the bubble was still thin, Rose said, "My clever Pearl," and finished the praise with a kiss to the stone at Pearl's forehead. Once the tank was emptied and returned to storage, Rose gently pulled Pearl back in close, asking, "What's troubling you, my Pearl?"

That was too much patience for Pearl to receive just then. Caught between the radiant warmth of Rose's kindness and the icy self-reproach of her doubts, Pearl's composure cracked, the slight gem sobbing, gently at first and then more heavily as she was buried in Rose's soothing embrace.

Several tearful minutes later Pearl, chastened but also feeling refreshed following her outburst, regained her composure while mopping her face with an ornate, lavender handkerchief. Looking up at Rose once more she said, "It is my fault that Lapis Lazuli was able to escape. She crippled the ship and has ruined your mission, my Rose, and I can't decide if I was careless or-" It was hard for her to even think the phrase, let alone speak it aloud, and her voice trembled some as she spoke, "-Unfaithful in carrying out your will." She sat there feeling miserable anew, only millennia-old habits keeping her back straight and shoulders square.

A large, strong hand ran lightly through Pearl's hair. "I'm sorry for your distress," said a voice like warm silk. "You're my clever Pearl, but right now you're being a little foolish," and a laugh tinkled in the thin air, the sting of the rebuke softened by another gentle kiss to her gemstone.

Rose pulled Pearl in close, her words resonating in her form as much as in the air. "The mission wasn't imperiled by Lapis' escape. In truth, Lapis' reckless abandon was what pulled us from the very jaws of defeat, a fact which is so very fitting of Lapis." Rose's gentle caress became firmer, almost painful and Pearl instinctively knew the subject, if not the content, of what was coming next. "Our defeat was guaranteed the moment we warped into the system. _Citrine-"_ and Rose's lovely voice became harsh. "-had the asteroid deflection system in wait, a trap that would have destroyed all of us had her subordinates not complicated matters. I should have anticipated it; she tried multiple times during the war to turn those into weapons arrayed against Homeworld."

Pearl's own feelings towards Citrine were complicated, greatly tempered by her fondness for Connie, but she hated the yellow Quartz a little each time her specter twisted her beautiful Rose into something thorny and bitter.

Hands rough in their trail across Pearl's form, Rose ground out, "Had we remained on the planet, no doubt some other doom was readied to send our ship down in ruin. That has ever been Citrine's style: victory assured, no matter the cost, no matter the enemy's struggle." Pearl had to swallow a whimper at the crushing grip around her torso. "You have no idea how frustrating she was as an opponent. I had hoped, when I was able to lead Connie into surrendering, that I would be safe. Five thousands years and I'm still foolish enough to ever think myself safe," she said ruefully, venom and self-reproach thick in her words.

Pearl gasped then forced herself silent; it hurt but her Rose would never truly hurt her and she was vexed with herself for letting the pain show. In an instant the vice grip was gone and Pearl was held closely to Rose. The light patter of healing tears meant all the harm was wiped away in an instant leaving only Pearl's mild guilt. Rose's caresses after were softness itself.

"My Rose," said Pearl quietly. "With Connie and the Crystal Gems onboard, wouldn't the orbital cannons have destroyed them as well?"

"You would think so, but rest assured that they had some means of surviving it. We will see them all again on Earth, I have no doubt," answered Rose, voice harsh and touch, gentle. "I long ago gave up trying to comprehend the twists to my sister's plans," she finished in a weary tone.

The planet below grew ever larger though Rose guided them lightly in their descent. At one point a mote of pink flew past, met by a red-orange glow as it entered the atmosphere, presumably the ruined handship freefalling to Earth. Pearl found it distressing to imagine Connie still aboard it and couldn't seem to find the angry certainty her Rose possessed, an acerbic faith that the Crystal Gems would somehow emerge from the wreckage unscathed.

"Are we defeated then, my Rose?" asked Pearl, too disquieted for silence.

She felt Rose's curls brush her form as she shook her head. "No. You can never win against Citrine. Not completely. And the same may yet be true of Connie. But if you are cunning and tenacious then you can still escape with a prize intact: some scrap of victory to call your own. There are two prizes on Earth that are crucial enough to entice me to return to this planet. If we can leave with one, that will be sufficient, though both would be greater still. And besides," Rose's voice growing sweeter and she graced Pearl's gemstone with another kiss. "I have you, my clever Pearl. You escaped this world once when it should have been impossible. With you at my side I will face anything my sister, or her daughter, have in store and never lose hope."

When Pearl cried again it was in gratitude: for Rose and for whatever force had brought her to such an owner.

* * *

It was night when they landed, the bubble dissolving and the warm rush of fragrant air greeting them. After a moment Pearl recognized their surroundings: Amethyst and she had ventured here once, early in their effort to escape, back when Pearl had been denied both the fullness of her thoughts and the ability to perceive music due to the crack on her gemstone.

They were at the edge of Rose's fountain, or the grounds thereof. The fountain itself stood at the center of a thicket maze and guarded by-

"Hello again, Rose. Pearl," said a calm voice from behind them.

Pearl nearly squawked with surprise --a most undignified reaction she'd never been able to excise-- as she swiveled about. Rose's shield was there in an instant, sheltering them both as her owner turned to face the voice.

"Hello Garnet," answered Rose, the shield dissolving. With warm mirth, she said, "I'm glad to see you still have your sense of humor, old friend."

The ghost of a smile crossed the fearsome fusion's lips. "I've stood here many times before. The future isn't what it used to be-" and there was a wry pause, a chuckle implied but unsaid. "-And I've waited only to see the river of time take a different turn instead."

"You've waited so very long," and Rose's voice was velvet. "And now your wait is over." Rose started to take a step forward as if to embrace the rose- and thorn-adorned fusion but stopped when Garnet took a small step back.

"You finally came back," and Pearl thought there was a waver in Garnet's otherwise confident voice.

Silence and then, "Why?" the fusion delivering one word laced with emotion, the edges of her form wavering as if she might come apart.

Rose rocked back, eyes widening. Pearl's expression was the studious neutrality fitting of a servant attending their master in public, but she couldn't help but wonder if it was that specific question that so struck Rose or that there was a question at all.

After another long second Rose regained her composure and said, "Reform is a beautiful word, isn't it? It's hopeful sounding. Peaceful. But in a universe such as ours, it's nothing of the sort." It was a bitter statement but Rose’s voice was mild. She smiled, her face lightening up and lifting Pearl's heart with it. "I haven't given up hope."

"You want to save the Earth from the Diamonds," asserted Garnet.

Pearl's expression didn't change but she felt a tremble at her core. Was that true? A Pearl was loyal to her master first and all others, even the Diamonds, second. But it was still a shocking thing to hear.

Rose shook her head, her voice growing bitter. "No. Citrine did that already, for all that victory cost her, for all that peace will last." Casually brushing one voluminous curl back into position, Rose said, "No, I want to save the Diamond Authority from the Diamonds." She took that half-step forward, her voice growing impassioned. "How would you like to return to Homeworld one day? As Garnet? The spirit of the Rebellion writ large, unsullied by Citrine. Can you see it, Garnet? Can you see it, old friend?"

The silence dragged out second after uncomfortable second, two of the fusion's three eyes closed. Finally Garnet said, "No. I can't."

Another terrible silence stretched out, no one moving save for the thorny foliage which stirred with every word from Rose's lips as if her voice were the wind itself. Then Garnet said, "But you can and I will follow you."

Rose's smile was wide and warm, the Quartz finally stepping forward to embrace the last rebel on Earth still loyal to her. When the two finally separated, Garnet reserved but Rose, radiant, Rose asked, "Would you be able to invite Citrine's faction to the Sanctuary? I want the two of us to propose a truce."

Another exhausting silence, Pearl starting to feel a little affronted on Rose's behalf for Garnet's overlong pauses. The Garnet she'd seen when rebels had invaded the Sand Spire had been far more responsive, quick-witted even; Pearl had said so, in as much as she'd been capable, while being interrogated during the Rebellion from within the book.

"Connie and Bismuth trust me, and even Jasper's ire has cooled some. More, they trust the Sanctuary." Garnet nodded. "They will meet us there after a little time recovering. A day. Two."

Pearl found herself talking without realizing it, a personal faux pax and a lapse of discipline she could scarcely believe. "Connie is alive?” A beat later she hastily added, “And the others?"

Three unblinking eyes fixed on Pearl while Rose's hand rested gently on Pearl's shoulders, finger and thumb to either side of her pale, slender neck.

"Yes. I see all the Crystal Gems alive and unharmed, though in some futures Bismuth is a while reforming," answered the half-seer.

Rose leaned in close and said quietly, venom and vindication clear in her voice, "See what we are arrayed against, my clever Pearl? Never underestimate my sister or you will lose more than you thought possible."


	10. Connie Epilogue

After the handship crashed, Jasper had announced they'd spend three hours assessing the damage and clearing out the worst of it: Peridot and Lapis focusing on the temple and Beach House while Jasper, Connie, Steven, and Wolf were focusing on Beach City. This had been met with some resistance by Peridot, who had effectively refused to be pried from Connie after seeing the girl be 'concussed, captured, assaulted, hurled through space, and then dropped to an almost certain demise,' but after clinging to Connie like a green backpack the entire way home, the gem had been mollified enough to allow Lapis to pull her free.

That had been in part because Peridot had no hope of getting up to the Beach House by herself: the stairs were a ruin, as was most of the deck. The temple arm that had been holding the laundry machines was missing from the elbow up, the beach littered with both statue and warp crystal fragments in addition to the omnipresent pink wreckage. Parts of the the house itself looked burned or cracked (or both), but the Bismuth-reinforced structure still stood... though it'd required a water hand to clear enough rubble away for the front door to be opened.

Jasper had split off to scour the boardwalk while Connie, Steven, Wolf went further into town. Connie could see just how many storefronts had suffered conspicuous water damage that she appreciated anew Jasper's understated influence on the group: even the braver, more self-assured Lapis that had returned from space would have filled with regrets at seeing what was almost certainly a consequence of her losing control when the handship had been approaching.

The damage in town was mostly not that bad. More windows were broken than intact --those that had survived the handship's impact hadn't survived the shock wave from the explosion that followed-- and the roads were debris-choked and cracked. Most houses the trio saw had taken the spaceship-equivalent of heavy hail damage, but the only building that had been destroyed was the lighthouse.

Early on Lapis had flown out to give Connie and Steven each a Geiger counter (Peridot kept several in her workshop) and they'd been able to confirm that, whatever the handship had been made out of, it hadn't been anything radioactive.

Despite it all, there was a corner of Connie that was caught in what was effectively a loop, a loop where she would every so often exclaim to herself, _I'm alive! I survived skydiving from SPACE!_ and she'd have to resist the urge to hug someone or do a little victory jig.

For a while she'd found herself kissing Steven often --his cheek; back of the head; lips; gloved hands; forehead; anywhere in reach when the impulse took here, really-- and Wolf had been kind enough to pretend not to notice or care. However, at one point Connie had implied that Asmi would make the work more fun and Steven had politely demurred. Later, when Connie had gone insubstantial to inspect the lighthouse wreckage (the structure too unsound for Steven or Wolf to risk it), she'd seen in his 'scape just how many conflicted feelings he'd been putting a good face on.

The kisses and fusion requests had stopped after that.

About two-and-a-half hours later, Wolf had portal-howled them out of town. Their first stop was to a cluster of hotels in Crossroads the Beach City evacuees were staying in, Steven jogging in to talk with the mayor and then exchange a few quiet words and tight hugs with his parents. Fortunately, Connie's dad had been out of town on business, trying to make his travel overlap with the Kansas City conference Priyanka was attending. Connie promised she'd contact her dad first thing in the morning, needing to leave that for future-Connie to worry about.

Their second portal stop had been, for reasons not known to Connie, a roadside barbecue restaurant, Steven and Connie going in to pick up a call-in order Steven had placed at some point. Food, drinks, and sides stored safely in Wolf's dimensional pocket, they'd finally portal’d to the warp pad near the Universe family barn so they could warp into the Beach House proper.

A part of the hardwood floor was a splintered mess, the pink ejecta that'd caused it removed but conspicuous for its absence. Boards had been hammered over the hole in the ceiling, the sloppy handiwork screaming Lapis because, Connie realized, Peridot couldn't get up to the roof. In fact, she wouldn't even be able to see over the countertop without a stepladder.

However, what had really caught Connie's attention was how chaotic the Beach House interior was, with belongings strewn everywhere. Lapis was doing a little tidying up, Peridot nowhere to be seen, when Connie asked if everything had been thrown around from the handship impact. Lapis had spared a discreet glance at the shut temple door before explaining that the robonoids had been brought out to help tidy up. However, they were really confused without Peridot's tech to orchestrate them and they'd eventually 'dumped the Tinkertoys back in Dot's room and written it off as a loss.'

Withdrawing the food from Wolf's pocket dimension, Connie and Steven spread everything out across the countertop, taking special care not to disturb the Bismuth gemstone that was resting in the middle, a garish, sparkly plastic tiara balanced precariously atop it. "She really hates it when I do that to her," explained Lapis with a Cheshire grin, the gem then demolishing a serving of potato salad.

After setting a heaping plate of cooked meat down on the floor for Wolf, Connie and Steven each claimed a bar stool and started eating their own much-delayed dinner.

There was a shuddering sound, the damaged deck outside groaning as Jasper leapt up onto it, Connie making a mental note to enter and exit insubstantial until it was rebuilt. The Quartz stepped inside, taking in the room at a glance... and sparing a blink for the tiara-topped Bismuth gemstone.

"Peridot?" she asked.

Lapis took a large bite of banana pudding and nodded toward the temple door.

"Debrief," continued the Quartz.

She started to stride toward the temple door when Lapis chucked her empty pudding cup in the trash and swallowed, jogging over with a headshake. "Lemme get her. She's..." and the blue gem trailed off.

"Yeah," answered Jasper, some sympathy rising to the stoic gem's eyes. She instead walked over and started petting Wolf's flank while the hound scoured plate and floor for every molecule of barbecue he could detect.

Lapis and Peridot emerged a minute later, the short technician filled with nervous energy. For a while she paced, then she scrambled up onto a bar stool, then she dropped down a moment later and sat sullenly on her usual spot the couch, her feet no longer quite reaching the floor.

Connie and Steven both spent a couple seconds discreetly gawking at the assembled gems, each visibly changed from Rose Quartz' return.

"What's the damage?" asked Jasper, looking between Peridot and Lapis. A beat later she clarified, "To house and temple?"

Peridot kicked small feet over the side of the couch. "As you no doubt perceived, the external warp pad was destroyed, and much of the house exterior --notably the porch and stairs-- is structurally suspect and not safe for use. The Beach House interior is largely unaffected, reflooring and reroofing efforts aside," and she gestured to the paired damage to floor and ceiling from the piece of handship debris that had smashed through. "The antennas built among the temple's horns have been heavily impacted, meaning that the signal quality the commander center is receiving from the wider sensor net is poor."

"Can you fix it?" asked the Quartz, standing at a parade rest near the kitchen entrance.

Peridot opened her mouth then closed it. Several long seconds passed and she finally answered, "Yes, though not for another two days at the earliest." She seemed to shrink in on herself a little, saying in a quieter voice, "All of my current efforts are being split between monitoring for threats and, erm, constructing new means of interfacing with my remaining tech. Time will be needed before I can effect repairs."

Jasper nodded. She then gave a brief description of the state of the town, with Connie and Steven joining in with their own findings. The general consensus was that the mayor’s repair crews could be busy for a month, maybe even two to erase all the damage, but there was nothing making Beach City dangerous to the evacuees.

Well, no more dangerous than usual.

"So," asked Lapis, having drifted over to sit beside Peridot, "about Rose Quartz..."

Slowly Connie realized that everyone was looking at her. "You’re asking me?"

"I got to trash talk her plenty, but you got to actually talk-talk with her," pressed Lapis. "Plus whatever that Pearl of hers let slip."

Connie frowned and found herself reaching out for Steven's hand without realizing it. He squeezed it back but, considering what she'd texted him before the invasion and what she'd seen in his 'scape, she felt a little guilty in a nonspecific way.

Pushing past that, Connie meant to give a brief overview of the events on the beach and then onboard the handship but it turned into a forty-five minute recounting of details. The others had occasional questions or comments, but it was Steven doing a messy spit take when Connie described Bismuth's Breaking Point battle with Rose that stood out most, her boyfriend sputtering and coughing for nearly a minute. He looked in disbelief from person to person, Connie finding it hard to meet his eyes just then but the others looking at most slightly perplexed at the reaction.

By the end of the exhausting retelling, Connie was shaking her head, perplexed. "What I'm confused about-" Connie caught herself, starting over. _"One_ of the things I'm confused about is my talk with Rose. At the start she switched between emotions and subjects super fast and without warning. It was really jarring," the girl's free hand having drifted up to the scratch on the gemstone at her chest.

"She was interrogating you," answered Jasper.

All eyes turned the Quartz' way, Connie quirking her head to the side. "Huh?"

"During the Rebellion we sometimes had to interrogate a captured gem," Jasper explained. "Sometimes Citrine could scare a gem enough to talk.” She paused, an idea suddenly occurring to her. “She might have been able to do more with her powers than she did. Wanted to keep that ability secret?" She shrugged. “Everyone knew she could cause fear so she did that. It wasn't always enough. Other times Citrine wasn't available. On a mission. So Rose would come in instead."

Wolf raised his head and nuzzled Jasper's hand, the Quartz giving him a noggin scratch while she looked from person to person in the room. "Rose was good at talking: flattery; surprises; flirtation; threats; debate. She was also good at reading gems: finding an angle and exploiting it."

Lapis waved a corruption-marked arm in the air. "When the heck was all of this? Why were you there for Rose Quartz going all 'Ve haff vays uf makink you talk'?" asked the blue gem, ending with an exaggerated German accent.

"Before the Schism," answered Jasper. "Sometimes they needed a guard in the room. Sometimes they needed an infamous, perfect guard in the room. Seemed to help, especially with the captured Quartzes."

Lapis bopped herself on the forehead with her palm. "Oh, right. Duh. Go ahead, OJ."

"Rose was good. Really good, but some gems were hard to find that angle on. She'd try different things. Was strange to see." Jasper's face was impassive but the gloved hand not petting Wolf was clenched into a fist. She met Connie's eyes. "She said you were hard to read."

Connie nodded, remembering the bewildering exchange. "Yeah, she did."

There was a beat of silence, then Steven addressed the room, asking, "Do we know what that other Peridot wants to do?"

Peridot shrugged. "Connie mentioned discussion about one 'The Cluster,' though that's not anything I've heard of before, at least not described in the definite article." She sighed, wringing her small hands in front of her. "The handship data crystal is in my possession and I will be examining it for relevant information, but doing so is an item with numerous prerequisites to its completion." She perked up, looking at Connie. "Although, to that end, I believe unlocking the holographic suite in your mother's room will greatly facilitate that effort, being a good, local computational and presentational replacement for, erm, recent hardware losses."

"You know how to unlock her holodeck?" asked Connie, her voice quiet. Trying to make that part of her mom's room do _anything_ had been a semi-regular and entirely fruitless activity of Connie's since she’d learned what it was months ago.

Peridot nodded. "At your mother’s archive I did a partial data extraction and discovered a maintenance code for the holographic suite. Once the proper cryptographic computations are completed, I should be able to activate it for use once more. It's something I have tasked the ersatz robonoids with; it's what the eleven of them are working on currently from within my workshop."

Connie swallowed and said, "G-Go ahead, ma'am. Mom." She shook her head. "Yeah, go ahead."

Lapis leaned back into the couch, crossing one poofy pant leg over the other and bouncing her bare blue ankle. "Going back to how Rose said crazy stuff, what was she doing bugging Con-con about Pink Diamond's shards? Citrine left those behind so Homeworld would know Pink D wasn't just poofed and chilling in a bubble somewhere."

Peridot shook her head. "It was indeed a strange line of inquiry. Perhaps a deliberate non sequitur to confound Connie?"

Connie shrugged, as did Steven a beat later.

"No," answered Jasper matter-of-factly. "It's because Citrine bubbled the majority of Pink Diamond's shards. She only left enough behind to be sure Homeworld would know Pink Diamond was shattered."

You could hear a pin drop in the Beach House just then.

“Really?” asked Steven in a quiet voice.

Jasper gave a curt nod in response.

"You've known that this whole time-" cried Peridot, her voice just shy of a shriek. "-And you never thought that a pertinent detail to share?!"

"Citrine showed me soon after she did it," answered Jasper simply. "She told me to keep it a secret."

Lapis finally recovered, her voice forceful, edging into shrill. _"And why'd she go and do a thing like that?!"_ The blue gem looked around, long hair flying side-to-side with the motion. "And where the heck'd she keep 'em?"

The blue gem's angry gaze settled on Wolf but the yellow hound gave the canine-equivalent of a shrug before deciding to try and wheedle pettings from Steven.

Completely unflappable, Jasper replied. "As leverage in case she had to negotiate with Homeworld." A beat. "They're in my room."

Lapis facepalmed loudly, a clear 'pop' that echoed through the Beach House interior. This was followed by a defeated, "Ugh! Now I just feel dumb."

Steven's face couldn't seem to decide how it should feel and settled on somewhere between confused and 'a little queasy.' "Why are you telling us now?"

"Because we might need to use them as leverage if we have to negotiate with Homeworld," explained Jasper as if it was obvious. "Citrine said I could say if she was gone and that happened."

When Jasper first dropped her truth bomb, Connie had gone wide-eyed. Then she'd stared in disbelief at Jasper, then the portrait hanging over the door past Jasper. Then she'd buried her face in her hands. Finally she'd heaved a long, loud sigh and ran a hand through her hair, suddenly looking very tired. "Of course! This whole time- For my whole life we just _have Pink Diamond's shards_ floating in the bubble cloud in the burning room!"

A beat passed and Connie realized Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper were all staring at her. She glanced around nervously before turning to Steven, her boyfriend wiggling his ears to broadcast that he was just as confused as she was. "What?" asked the girl anxiously.

Jasper's look at Connie was patient but her voice was unusually didactic. "The shards are kept in _my_ room. Not the burning room."

Connie and Steven shared a wide-eyed look of complete surprise, in unison shouting, "THAT ISN'T YOUR ROOM?!"

In response the gemstone at Jasper's nose flickered, the orange stone set into the temple door glowed, and the temple opened on a room Connie had never seen before in her life.

Before getting off her stool, Connie looked at Peridot and Lapis in disbelief, the two saying over one another, "I hadn't realized you were unclear on the distinction." // "Don't look at me. No one got to go into OJ's room, ever. Locked up tight."

The group approached the room slowly, Steven clutching Connie's hand and Connie clutching his right back. Inside were canyon walls in banded shades of orange, yellow, red, and brown, the humanoid-shaped holes covering them an unmistakable sign it was supposed to look like a gem Kindergarten. The room was dim, the only light coming from a sky caught in some liminal time of day: dawn or twilight, it was impossible to tell.

Stars twinkled in unfamiliar constellations overhead.

The others parted, allowing Jasper to stride in, leading the way. After rounding a bend they stopped in front of a hole that was half-again larger than all the others, the silhouette's arms raised in a flex. A cloud of yellow bubbles floated within, glowing softly.

With a gesture, the cloud of bubbles descended towards the Quartz. In one Connie saw an orange flower, perfectly preserved. In another there was a large metal shield, shattered into several different pieces, a damaged yellow lotus icon visible in parts across the fragments. Another had an XXL-sized shirt that read 'Professional Beach Hunk,' still creased as if fresh from the store.

There were dozens more, each with some token or object locked out of time by the yellow bubble housing them, but Jasper waved them all away save for three. Pink shards bobbed within each, Peridot making a strangled noise somewhere between disbelief and reverence as they wafted into view.

Connie could only shake her head and cling to Steven's grip like a tether to sanity. She'd been varying degrees of confused ever since waking up on that handship, and that had only deepened following her talk with Rose Quartz. But now she had an almost resigned sense of certainty settling in her gut: a truth found, if an unpleasant one. 

Whatever Rose Quartz was doing on Earth, she was after these shards. She was after them and she would threaten Connie and her family again and again until she got them... or until she was defeated.

Somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, so that's where those shards got off to.
> 
> A few fun facts:  
> 1) If you go back to the conclusion of Ep33Ch6, you'll see Jasper return to her room.  
> 2) Pink Diamond's shards are never mentioned one way or another in Citrine's journal in Ep31. One might even say conspicuously so.  
> 3) Connie read the account of Jasper getting the 'Professional Beach Hunk' shirt in Ep16Ch3.
> 
> And so we finally come to the conclusion of _The Return_. Per our schedule, we'll be taking a week off between episodes, so you can expect some omake content to go up this Wednesday. However, join us Wednesday, July 10th for the start of **Episode 36: Aftershocks**
>
>>   
>   
> Rose and P2 are loose on Earth while the Crystal Gems, as a whole and as individuals, scramble to recover.
> 
> Edit: Double bingo!  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping track of all the updates to Connie Swap can get a little difficult, can't it? It doesn't have to be! If you go to the [Connie Swap Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/630527) page and click the " **Subscribe** " button then you will receive an email alert every time a new episode is posted or a new chapter is added to _ANY_ fic in Connie Swap.
> 
> One button. All the updates.


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